


You Can Run

by Everren, scavengethestars



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Biting, Blood Kink, Blow Jobs, Breathplay, Canon-Typical Violence, Cunnilingus, Emergency Contraception, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Choking (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Forced Orgasm, Inappropriate Use of the Force, POV Alternating, Pregnancy Kink, Rape/Non-con Elements, Unsafe Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, no actual non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:13:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 136,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25250665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everren/pseuds/Everren, https://archiveofourown.org/users/scavengethestars/pseuds/scavengethestars
Summary: How long had it been? How many days filled with military monotony? How many nights filled with longing and anger and regret? How many times had he tried to reach her, to reopen the connection she had slammed shut on Crait? How many nights had he pored over ancient texts, studying, learning, researching, understanding? How often had he thought of her, imagined what it would be like when he finally caught up with her, what it would be like to watch her squirm on the point of the truth he had uncovered?He had lost count.It was ironic, then, that the first time he saw her again, he was taken completely by surprise.Almost a year after the Battle of Crait, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren receives intelligence that the Last Jedi is finally within his grasp, if he only has the nerve to reach out and catch her. He's hunted her across the galaxy, and this time he's determined he won't let her slip through his fingers — not when he has proof that their destinies have always been fated to intertwine.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 198
Kudos: 218





	1. Careless

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 

How long had it been? How many days filled with military monotony? How many nights filled with longing and anger and regret? How many times had he tried to reach her, to reopen the connection she had slammed shut on Crait? How many nights had he pored over ancient texts, studying, learning, researching, understanding? How often had he thought of her, imagined what it would be like when he finally caught up with her, what it would be like to watch her squirm on the point of the truth he had uncovered?

He had lost count.

It was ironic, then, that the first time he saw her again, he was taken completely by surprise.

He had been thinking of her — of course he had been; when wasn't he thinking about her? — but loosely. His attention had been largely focused on the unfathomable incompetence of Hux's stormtroopers and containing the rage he'd barely managed to suppress while he had been piloting his newly commissioned TIE _Whisper_ back into the belly of the _Finalizer_ after his trip planetside. Now, finally alone in his quarters, his gloved fingers were itching to wrap around the hilt of his lightsaber and lay waste to anything solid that dared get in his way.

They were always one step behind. So close. So close he could almost taste her. Almost. Not quite. She was always just out of reach. Always barricaded behind the walls she'd constructed in her mind to _keep him out_.

There were clues, scattered like breadcrumbs across the galaxy, and Kylo had relentlessly pursued them in the year since Crait. Pursued _her_.

This time it had been a sighting, on Dantooine, of all places. It had been confirmed: reported by a local hoping to curry favor with the First Order and backed up by security footage from Dantoo Town, which Kylo had made sure to see with his own eyes. He had missed her by hours. _Hours_. It made his blood boil in his veins.

A frustrated hiss leaked out from between his clenched teeth as he leaned over the podium where his grandfather's helmet rested, the leather of his gloves pulled taut over his knuckles as he grasped tightly at the stand. The presence of the thing washed over him, stoking the Darkness inside him into an even blacker veil, which wrapped around him like comforting night.

And then, suddenly, _her_.

Despite the long months of disconnect, Kylo recognized the sensation immediately, when it came. The whispering in the Force, the dampening of the world around him, _her_ , so close, so bright, like a pinprick of light in a sea of darkness. His gaze snapped up, searching for her, always searching for her.

✦✦✦

The green stunned her, just like the lush vision of Takodana had when it blazed before the cockpit of the _Falcon_ like a dream. Streaming out of star-flung darkness into the aching blue of the sky and then that sweep of vibrant green, and the shining mirror of still water. A living planet, one that was not choking on the dust of smugglers’ bones and the wasted deeds of past marauders.

But anything after Jakku was a vision; any breath taken off of the desert planet that she’d called home was as refreshing as rain. That miracle had come later, on Luke’s castaway island: the chill drizzle of water, so much water, dancing off the sea and crumbling stone and her own freckled skin alike. The only place she’d seen more water was in her dreams, and it was her restless, sleeping mind that had also taunted her with fields of green. Mountains of it, open valleys, places she’d known she would never see. 

And now – she had run through Takodana’s dense jungles, where she’d first glimpsed her nightmare, and she’d washed up on Luke’s lost island like driftwood tossed by the waves, always on the wrong shore. The path, disoriented and dangerous as it might have been, had led the rebels to a thin victory, but it was a victory nonetheless. The losses were great, their resources depleted and their hopes devastated, but wasn’t that always the brink the Resistance found itself on? 

Somehow they always clambered back; she had only Leia’s warm words to hold onto. Maybe they did have all they needed. One spark was enough to light a fire.

Logic dulled the sheen of hope: they had no base. They had no ships, no weapons, no plan, and no sense of when the First Order might pick up their trail. She made sure of that – there would be no connection with the enemy. Snoke may have built the bridge between their unwitting minds, a feat he gloated over moments before his death, but she had seized the planks of that sundered bridge to build a wall. As high and as fast as she could, not only to fend off the forceful, invasive attempts the new Supreme Leader himself might make, and which he could, as he’d demonstrated during her interrogation; she knew that more than that, she needed to seal any cracks in her own curious, wavering, frightened thoughts. Allowing any ghost of that sleek darkness through would be to invite his whole presence in, and she could not risk the whereabouts of the limping Resistance. Her own head and everything within it was their greatest threat, and she was determined to lock it and throw away the key.

She wanted more than anything to be an asset, not a liability, and so who better to send down to Dantooine, to scout for information and aid, than a scavenger? Who had more practice in the lonely art of staying hidden? And it was green – that breathless green, just like Ajon Kloss, where they had made their temporary refuge. They would always need to keep moving, they all knew it, and so she had entered Dantoo Town to not only collect what valuable supplies she could find, a scavenger’s instinct, but also to test the atmosphere, to feel for where the dangers lay. Sympathizers crouched on both sides of the war, but the rebels needed a place to land their next uncertain step. Her lone venture did not carry the approval of her friends, but it was safest, and she could untether her bound thoughts for a while. She was responsible for no one’s immediate safety but her own, and there was the bustle of stands and shops and whirring, clattering droids. The green was lovely.

Keeping such a furious grip on her own mind was a months-long exercise in blind exhaustion, and the freedom now was a wash of sweet relief. She could think of the gentle chaos of walking through town and little else, not needing the ‘saber at her belt or even the sandy hood and wraps protecting her from sight, should anyone peer too closely. No one did; it felt like an untroubled day on a planet not thrashed by war, and she dropped her hood to accept a necklace that was looped over her head by a kindly local, exchanging smiles and conversation like there were no other concerns to be had. It was a pleasant, buoyant feeling that lingered with her, and because she wasn’t keen to let it go, she stole two precious hours to sit in the slanted shadow of her borrowed ship, away from town, watching two moons glide across a blood-gold sky. Dreaming had always come easily, once she fought her way through ragged sleep, and it found her now, even awake. Once the war was won, and the First Order’s shackles had been unchained from the orbiting worlds, was this what peace would feel like?

No prowling shadows – but the glimmering thought was cut short, because there was a shadow, suddenly; she could feel it as certainly as she could feel hungry, calculating eyes on her in the dunes of Jakku. But this wasn’t Jakku, and there were no eyes on her. There was no one nearby; she leapt to her feet to prove it to herself, heart spinning in her chest as she quickly scanned the trees. Nothing. But it was a loaded nothing, a familiar nothing, and it rapidly began to unspool before her, breath catching. Sweat beaded at her hairline – it was peacefully warm – but now that sweat drew down her skin in lines of ice, and through the wall she’d constructed, through the door she’d locked, there was a slithering draft. It rankled her to the bone: everything slowly going hollow, a low hum reverberating in her chest, a second heartbeat beneath her own.

Then a black shape, towering, still and focused, and the energy in the Force bristled, shrill but silent, like a scream underwater. There were no surroundings; just him. Her own blood died in her veins, frozen, and she felt as if she were looking into the eyes of a wolf. She supposed she was. 

One hand fell to the hilt of her ‘saber, teeth gritting over the sound of her shock, and a stammering whisper hitched free, refusing this unwelcome vision. 

“No. No, no, no.”

✦✦✦

Kylo slowly straightened as she solidified into existence in front of him, pulling vertebra after vertebra into alignment until he stood to his full, imposing height. Dark eyes moved hungrily over her, drinking her in, picking out all the ways she'd changed since the last time he'd seen her (and all the ways she hadn't). Beads of moisture clung to her forehead; that was not new. She'd perspired when she'd fought: fought him _and_ fought by his side. The daggers in her eyes were not new either, although it pained him to see how sharply they'd returned. It made his jaw clench tightly, his lips pressing into a petulant line, as he exhaled tremulously through his nose.

"You're getting careless," he remarked, the mask of disconnect firmly in place to conceal the way her nearness affected him, the way a swarm of can-cell had taken wing in his stomach at the mere sight of her after all this time. The anger behind his cold, cutting tone was real, though. He didn't need to feign that, nor did he feel the need to conceal it, not after the injustice she had done him. His traitorous heart might long for her, plaguing him with dreams of what could have been had she just _taken his hand_ , but his fury and ignominy at her rejection burned with intensity through his conscious mind. 

"How long has it been? Months. But I knew it was only a matter of time."

He drew in a breath, his chest swelling against the confines of his tunic, making him painfully aware of the way his heart pummeled the inside of his ribs.

"Just as it's only a matter of time before I catch up to you. I was close this time. I could feel you nearby."

With a jolt, he realized he still could. Wherever she was, she had not yet left the system. Careful not to let his face betray his revelation, he studied her, taking closer note of those beads of sweat slowly making their way down her temples; the necklace, clearly Dantooine in origin (the informant had said they'd made a gift of one for the chance to get a closer look at her face), which hung across her chest, framing the 'v' of her tunic collar; the specks of dirt on her white desert garb, concentrated around the bottoms of her leggings, the trailing lengths of the linens she wore wrapped around her and the sole-line of her boots, still slightly damp from traversing lush and verdant countryside. _She was still planetside_. She had not yet surrendered to the cool, parched, recirculated air of a starship, not yet shed the indicative traces of Dantooine that clung to her.

Kylo felt practically giddy with the realization. He could feel her solidifying within his grasp, just as the image of her had solidified through the Force after all this time. All he needed to do was close his fist and…

✦✦✦

Kriff, but he was _big_ — a leering Loth-wolf materializing out of the trees, pure black save for that pale face and those diamond-sharp eyes, flashing and dark, a deep, uncharted dark, and she felt pinned beneath the weight of that starving gaze. Her earliest memories were steeped in hunger: scouring the surface of Jakku for salvaged metal to trade for rations that only briefly filled the emptiness. It was a desperation she easily recognized, and she felt it now as those wolf's eyes razed over her skin, consuming every detail. Dangerous details, clues that she had been too careless to hide, and his voice was suddenly so heavy and near, across so many months and so many stars, that she could only stand in mute wonder.

The guilty pattering in her chest was the only answer to his accusation. She _was_ getting careless; her desire to escape the smothering pressure of war had left her almost willing to lower her guard, to pretend for a few mere hours that she didn’t need a shield. It was too late now to admit, of course, that she did need one, and she could feel her temples pulsing with the close, greedy energy of Kylo Ren, a frayed, crackling static. How close was he?

She didn’t dare lower her gaze from his face, fingers closing around the hilt of her ‘saber as she took a step back, already feeling panic begin to simmer. Where was he? How much could he see? His face, to her fury, betrayed nothing: he didn’t need a mask in order to maintain stoic indifference. His expression was as lifeless as if he were reading a page of dense text, but her horror was in how even his silence, his utter detachment, could make her feel starkly bare. As easily perused as if she were the page of text, a map, dutifully detailing her whereabouts. There was no obscuring it, because there was no running from his hounding gaze. She could feel his shuttered eyes touching the sweat pearling at her brow, and she could feel that gaze sliding down to her collarbones, also glossed in a nervous sweat, and over the long, beaded necklace that draped across her chest. Stupid – her eyes fluttered shut in bitter dismay at the realization that the gift must have been an informant’s ploy.

“This wasn’t _you_ ,” she snapped without thought, wanting only to rip away the triumph he might have thought he'd found. “You’re relying on spies, because you have no idea where we are. You _felt_ nothing,” and she needed to believe that.

With everything laid before him now, she had to trust that he really knew very little, that he’d seen very little. She’d refused, ardently, to let him feel anything between them. Yet here he was, and her heart was as tight as a fist, quivering against her ribs. For one rogue moment she noted the straining black of his tunic over his chest, that cavernous slope, and wondered if his heart was pounding, too.

Despite Dantooine’s warmth, a chill feathered uncomfortably over her, beneath her linen wraps and along her revealed, dirt-spackled skin. Evidence of travel that she knew her adversary was collecting the longer they stood facing one another, his presence edging closer the longer the door remained open. She was a beacon guiding his hostile forces to the quiet planet, infiltrated as it had proven to be, and her fear resolved into rage. 

Drawing and igniting the ‘saber, she made no effort to control the feral outburst, lunging forward to slash at the dark figure, to sever the bond that had flickered back to life despite her fiercest efforts to strangle it. An indignant cry accompanied the strike, and her mind exploded helplessly: she needed to leave, _now_ , and go where? She wouldn’t lead him to the Resistance’s discreet jungle moon, and she wouldn’t be captured again, cornered by her own fright. The galaxy, for all its vast splendor, rapidly began to shrink. How far could she run before realizing she was in a cage?

✦✦✦

Kylo didn't fail to notice the way her knuckles whitened around the familiar hilt of the Skywalker ‘saber — _so, she had found a way to fix it, then_ — but he didn't reach for his own, simply held himself still, his thick muscles full of coiled tension. She was trying to rile him; her words were biting and barbed, aimed to draw blood, but all they elicited was the slightest twitch of a muscle beneath his left eye as he continued to survey her.

She wasn't entirely wrong (there wasn't an occupied planet in the galaxy that didn't have eyes in his employ) but she wasn't entirely right either. He did feel — oh, if only she knew how he _felt_ — and he'd felt her, from time to time, throughout the months, the way one felt the presence of someone moving about on the other side of a locked door. A prickle at the back of his neck. A shiver down his spine. It had never been enough that he could use it to find her — she had made sure of that — but it had been enough to reassure him that she was still there, that their bond was still as strong and active as it had been when it had first manifested. It had fueled his tireless search for answers. It had been his companion in discovery.

Now, now that the bond was fully open again for the first time since Crait, he could feel her Force Signature blazing so brightly, so nearby, that the sensation was like heat on his cheeks. It felt like standing before a sun and trying to squint into its splendor.

Oh, he felt, alright, as palpably he had felt her hot hand against his thigh when they'd fought back to back in the ruins of Snoke's throne room, as viscerally he had felt the sting of the guard's vibro-blade as it sliced through the skin of _her_ arm.

He felt. It was his greatest weakness.

Now, he felt her moving, even as her muscles decided how to execute her lunge, and he was able to leap out of the way of the blade she drew on him, despite her lightning speed — she had grown quicker, more precise, since the last time he'd seen her fight. His leather cloak whispered behind him through the thick air and he twisted around just in time to see her blink out of existence.

His own actions were just as fast, in the seconds that followed. A leather-gloved fist slammed down on the comlink button on the wall and the static crackle that followed was quickly drowned out by Kylo's barked order.

"Leave my TIE where it is; I'm on my way back," followed by an afterthought: "And stop any ship that tries to leave the atmosphere. Stop, _don't_ destroy. Track it if you have to."

He didn't allow himself time to mourn the loss of her presence. He couldn't. The time for mourning and raging and regretting was over. The time for acting was now.

✦✦✦

More infuriating than the relentless strength of their bond was the strength that was mirrored between them when they fought. They had been evenly matched in the snowy trees on Starkiller Base, when their blades had crossed in that first deadly dance, and it had taken a shattering rift in the planet to separate what might have been a dead-end fight. He was far superior at manipulating the Force with practiced finesse, even if she had been diligently focused on honing her own training. But who was there to teach her? Leia could try, and she did, but she needed someone who knew, someone who understood how to handle that lurking, heaving energy, someone who knew how to keep it under control when it began to surge free. Anger, fear, resentment; those were the fuels that, when spilled onto the flames of her sensitivity to the Force, sent it flaring through her, a burn with no other outlet than to lash out.

The only person who shared that affinity was the black-clad figure before her, but he had firmly devoted himself to the wrong side of the war. He’d chosen to smother the light when he could have followed it home, and now, an agent of villainous darkness, he was going to oversee its insatiable wrath reaching across the galaxy. Destroying whole planets and races, antagonizing the Resistance’s efforts to restore peace, and disrupting any hope of balance. Short-sighted and narrow-minded and selfish, and her rigorous training in the jungle was still not enough to match his experience in combat. She was impulsive and swift, brimming with kinetic energy like a lightning bolt; but he was steadier, more confident and composed in his reaction, evading her like water. It felt as if he could see through her movements seconds before she made them, as if he was allowing her aggression to act itself out while he parted before and around and behind it, out of reach. And then he was gone, the air she had cut through empty, but charged and waiting, as if someone had just passed through it.

There was only a moment wasted as she paused, listening, wide gaze skipping over the trees, anticipating a reappearance. She couldn’t _allow_ one, abandoning the spot of her brief repose to climb back aboard the grungy x-wing that she should have steered off of the planet hours ago. There was no time for regretting lost hours, or for berating herself over allowing her precarious wall to be breached, adrenaline making her breath feel thin as she worked in vain to focus on reviving the sleeping ship. He would know where she’d been and where she was, fingers trembling as she punched in the controls that would lift the old, smoke-stained ship from the planet’s lush surface. It had felt so welcoming, so untouched by the shadows that, if she’d been thinking clearly, she’d known it would be waiting to reach out and trip her. It was too late, it was always too late when they were only one step ahead, and she kept her teeth clenched as her thoughts longed to linger, something beneath her skin still humming.

It was a cruel stroke that the only individual to acknowledge and see and share her deepest loneliness was also her wartime enemy, a pawn of darkness when he could have been so much more, when he could have been the one to _end_ the war, and the chaotic din of her troubled thoughts left her able to chase only one practical option, and that was to evacuate the planet before she could be spotted, streaking furiously up and away. If he was still close, then it was fair to assume he might have ships loitering to intercept her, and her own piloting abilities were usually turbo-boosted by pure necessity and dread, with now being no different. A chase was less dangerous than outright capture, and her grit in returning enemy fire had served her well before. With a helmet latched in place and the controls gripped in her sweaty palms, she could only hope that she would plunge free into the stars before a lasso was thrown around her neck.

✦✦✦

The TIE _Whisper_ fell away from the _Finalizer_ with the characteristic screech of its twin ion engine. Behind it, two dozen more fighters launched, spreading out to become a smattering of black spots against the blue-green carpet of Dantooine's atmosphere.

It could only have been minutes since Rey had disappeared from his quarters but Kylo knew he couldn't trust that his people wouldn't let her escape; she was smart and quick and she used the Force to guide her hand without even realizing she was doing it. His stormtroopers hadn't been able to intercept her on the ground only a few hours ago. What guarantee was there that his fighter pilots would fare any better? No, if a capture was imminent, he felt certain he was the only one who stood a chance of snaring her, and he felt sure it would take all the cunning and piloting skill he possessed.

The _Whisper_ dipped lower, into Dantooine's exosphere, as dark, predatory eyes scanned the azure horizon below for any sign of a ship aiming to break free of orbit. The way Kylo saw it, Rey had two options: stay put planetside and wait for his ground forces to track her down — it might take a while but he would ensure that they were methodical this time — or make a break for it and try to escape into open space. He knew she would choose the latter. It was her best chance. It was what _he_ would do.

Well, he was ready for her. She wouldn't get away from him this time.

His fingers tightened around the TIE's control handles, leather squeaking against durasteel. The Force had shut down their connection but Kylo could still sense her nearby. He had thrust out strands of his consciousness, towards the spot where her Light had burned so brightly, as the link had severed, determined not to let the doors slam shut again on the bulkhead she'd created between their minds. Whether his tactic had worked or she was just too busy to focus sufficiently on keeping him out, he could still feel her close to him, sense the frenetic energy tainting her Force Signature now she'd realized she was being hunted.

 _You can run, Rey_ , he thought, sending the words along the gossamer thread of consciousness which connected them, quiet, staid: a promise. _But you can't hide from me. Not anymore._

✦✦✦

The open, silent sea of space – there was no way he would find her there. She would leap out of range before he had even chased her out of orbit, into the anonymity of hyperspace, and he would be adrift, again, mapless. Now he would _stay_ adrift, because she could not afford a second episode of such treacherous leisure. He would not be allowed to skulk so close again. Her mind was working feverishly to repair the wall, to suture the open wound he had made of her very existence, to assure he stayed trapped in the vacuum of his own making. Unfenced space, that was all she needed to find, and she needed to breathe – his nearness, however brief, was a claustrophobic weight she could still feel.

He was the shadow cast over her silent hysteria, and he was the sudden tightness in her chest. He was the icy breath she swore she could feel on the nape of her neck, and he was the quiver in her fingers, in the lean, tense muscle of her legs as she sat, rapt, yearning for the promise of her escape. Once she was lost in the galaxy’s deep black, there would be nothing he could do. He would be blindfolded by the immeasurable distance she intended to put between them.

The promise she received, however, was a different sort, and it intoned up from the base of her skull. Steady, so _steady_ , almost gentle in its certainty, a smooth invasion, and she let out a frustrated cry as his voice strummed the taut chords in her head. He was anticipating that she would run, she knew that, but did he know how fast she could run? She would be no more than the fading, arcing tail of a falling star by the time he’d given chase.

But he was there, and it was no longer a vague, dimming memory. It was no longer empty, transparent words to try and capture how it felt to have him so close. Because now he was close, physically, dangerously, and his threat inside her head only drove her to push the x-wing harder, demanding more speed as she burst through Dantooine’s painted atmosphere. The roar of engines and the old ship’s long, tapered nose splitting through the stars should have brought her relief, but it only left her facing a new problem: where was she to go? It didn’t matter – all she needed to do was run faster, deeper, and a final searching glance out the cockpit’s window was her only farewell to Dantooine before jumping to lightspeed.

There was a shivering thread between them still, it snagged her awareness like a glint of light, and she willfully allowed it to stay intact, unbroken, just long enough to beckon Kylo into her head. One final invitation to bring him flush against her perception, because this _was_ the last. No words – sharing her own wheeling vision of the immensity of black space as it swallowed her, shot through with so many millions of stars, was enough. Let him witness the infinity she had escaped into. Let him feel it as it electrified her marrow, the hyperspeed of her freedom.

Adrenaline made her reckless. He would be left behind, his murderous subordinates would be left behind, and his search would be, once again, and as it always would be, hopeless. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. The bond would be severed with the clean, fatal cut of a hatchet, and she was braced to feel it, to know her Force-bound anchor had been cut loose as she coursed through the dark.

✦✦✦

He sensed her moving before he saw her, as though the line which connected them was suddenly being tugged. He could feel it behind his navel, at the back of his mind, in the depths of his tattered soul. He could sense that she was moving fast, could practically feel the excited hum of her heartbeat as she did everything she could think of to escape him. His grip tightened around the handles of his TIE's controls and he was already accelerating, letting his feelings guide him, when he finally saw the x-wing, dead ahead, speeding up through the atmosphere as it made for open space.

His reactions were quick; his piloting skill, almost second to none. With the reflexes of one who'd been flying starships since before he could walk, he easily fell onto her tail. Still, he hung back. He didn't need to catch her. Not yet. As long as he could just keep her in his sights, keep her within range...

One gloved hand moved to flip a yellow lever-switch on the left-hand control column and, at once, the cockpit was filled with a shrill beeping as the _Whisper_ 's advanced active tracking system prepared to lock onto its target. Kylo carefully kept the TIE steady, his heart beating heavily in his throat, while he watched the x-wing break atmosphere in the distance. _Nearly there_.

The beeps sped up in frequency until, finally, a single, continuous note sounded, victorious. Kylo let out an unsteady breath, his grip relaxing on the control paddles.

Ahead, the x-wing disappeared, blinking out of sight.

Almost at once, images that were not from his own eyes began to seep into Kylo's mind. Hyperspace. The strobes of blue and white against the black void. She felt triumphant. Vitriolic. So sure of herself. He knew it would be short-lived, once she realized what he'd done, but the knowledge brought him no joy, just a sense of grim determination, even as the connection between them closed with a slam.

Alone again, he jabbed the comlink button on the right-hand control column, opening communications with the _Finalizer_.

"Call back the fighters and prepare to jump to lightspeed. Follow my lead."

Someone on the star destroyer's bridge acknowledged that the order had been received and would be carried out but Kylo barely listened, too busy adjusting his TIE's navigational computer to follow the leash he'd attached to Rey's x-wing. There was a visceral jolt, as the ship's miniature hyperdrive engaged, before Kylo found himself engulfed by the hypnotizing maw of hyperspace.

Leaning back in his seat, his hands falling from the controls as autopilot took over, Kylo stared sightlessly out through the transparisteel viewport, focused on a place, or perhaps a time, a long way away, a place he had once seen in a vision.

"I'm coming for you, Rey," he breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [RushRush4DReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushRush4DReylo/profile) for beta reading for us and helping us make sure our alternating POV worked for you, our lovely audience.


	2. Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Drawing and igniting her 'saber, ready this time to confront more than the illusion of her enemy, she kept a rebellious glare fixed on the sky, unable to keep the connection from wavering open, out of fear or spite, she didn’t know, and she murmured aloud darkly as she let the challenge burn across the bond. “Come and catch me, if you think you can. No tricks. Just you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 

The tunnel of hyperspace was soothing: glowing streaks of blue and white, guiding Rey far from the distraction of Dantooine, and anyone who had dared to chase her from its surface. They would be left in the abyss of open space once she’d made her jump, and as she was visibly within the protection of lightspeed now, she finally drew in a deep breath, one that restored her shallow lungs, eyes closing as her hands slipped from the controls. She’d made for the nearest hyperlane she could locate in the midst of her panic, consulting the navicomputer without the handy input of an onboard droid. It had been safest to travel alone, and at any rate, she was capable; the sweat sleeking her hair beneath her helmet might have said otherwise, but she had done it. The bond was shunted, and the First Order could not track her at lightspeed.

Why, then, did the connection refuse to die? She could feel it, an odd assault on all of her senses, as it had been when she’d cleaved through the atmosphere with Kylo’s voice reaching into her head. A copper taste in the back of her mouth, a flicker of light at the corners of her eyes, that persistent hum in her skull, in her nape, in all of her bones, a ghost over her skin. It was the same energy that preceded a Force connection; that whisper that she wasn’t alone. But she _had_ to be, she was traveling far beyond his reach, and even so, the lapse of peace she’d found began to evaporate around her. It wasn’t possible. Despite how true that should’ve been, her nimble hands returned to the controls, the muscles of her back bracing up along her spine.

Months apart hadn’t been enough to numb the prey’s instinct, and she resented, briefly, before anxiety began to blind her, that he possessed that power. Now even hyperspace didn’t escape his stalking shadow?

Whether it was the short-circuiting of logic or her own rising, chaotic energy, pulse racing helplessly, she began to lose the clear readings of her navicomputer. Like the live wire of connection in her head, it began to flicker; was it the interfering pull of gravity? The hungry tug of a nearby star? The readings crisscrossed and something in the cockpit chimed; something in her head warned that it was her own piloting skill succumbing to the pressure of fear. There was one indicator that was coming in clear, and that was the blinking pinpoint of a ship following her own. Like any startled animal, her first impulse was to change course, and sharply, before coherent thought could interrupt. Jostled by the turbulence of veering out of the hyperlane she’d maintained, she directed the x-wing in a frantic jump down toward the atmosphere of a close-by sleeping planet. Generis? In a fleeting moment of appreciation, she noted that it was green.

Vastly green, tangled knots of jungles and more sweeping plains, and tremendous amounts of blue, too — expansive lakes — but as she flew the stuttering, straining ship through its atmosphere, she was taken by just how many trees there were. Towering sallaps, an endless, dense forest of them, as if they were reaching up to snag incoming fighters from the sky. It was over the tops of those trees that she skimmed the x-wing’s dirty belly, blazing in for a landing that was going to be anything but elegant, mind working against itself to keep the vision of the new planet from escaping into that too-close connection. If it even mattered – but thinking about how close her pursuers were, which her scrambled navigator was obediently reminding her, only kept that door hinged open.

Her aimless, frightened furor was returning, and perhaps some part of her had already accepted that an intergalactic chase was not going to end in her favor, especially if the Supreme Leader was bringing the brunt of his forces to bear. No, if he wanted to catch her, he would have to step out of the safety of his revered black TIE and face her, and be subjected, once again, to the reality of her ‘saber. 

Once her loyal x-wing had crashed through the smothering greenery, splintering the mighty trees and coming to a smoking, roaring halt, she didn’t waste any time. Quivering hands unclipped her helmet and abandoned it as she scampered out of the cockpit, hitting the ground and swiftly taking in the buzzing scene. The acrid tang of singed trees was the only thing to testify that she was not dreaming. Here, at least, on another quietly-spinning planet, he still would not have what he wanted. He would be no closer to the Resistance, faced instead only with Rey herself, and all of the intel she refused to give him. Something within her, anyway, still held to that simplistic view, that the death of the Resistance was all Kylo was after, but the pounding in her chest knew better.

Drawing and igniting her 'saber, ready this time to confront more than the illusion of her enemy, she kept a rebellious glare fixed on the sky, unable to keep the connection from wavering open, out of fear or spite, she didn’t know, and she murmured aloud darkly as she let the challenge burn across the bond. “Come and catch me, if you think you can. No tricks. Just you.”

✦✦✦

Kylo was already disabling autopilot, re-engaging the TIE's manual controls and accelerating to full speed as the _Whisper_ fell out of hyperspace. He just had time to take in the breathtaking blue-green of the planet below before his ship broke atmosphere, close on the tail of Rey's x-wing. His knuckles strained as he pressed the control paddles all the way forward, pulling on every last scrap of power the twin ion engine had to give. He had tracked her this far. He wasn't going to lose her now.

As he neared the ground, following the line of invisible thread which connected him to Rey, he saw an ugly scar in the landscape up ahead, where the sallap trees had been violently felled and left in splintered ruins. In the distance, at the end of the line of destruction, a plume of smoke rose up to mar the azure sky.

Kylo felt a note of panic chime through him. _Stop, don't destroy_. Had he inadvertently subverted his own command with his relentless pursuit?

But, no. Rey was alive. He could sense her. She was alive and she was nearby. She was alive, she was nearby and she'd rendered herself without means of transportation. The only way she was leaving this planet now was with him.

_Come and catch me, if you think you can. No tricks. Just you._

The _Whisper_ dipped down below the tree line, its black belly all but skimming the ground, glancing over the remains of once great, now fallen, trees, until it screeched to a halt in front of Rey's battered and discarded x-wing. The top hatch opened and Kylo pulled himself out, landing on the springy ground between the Whisper's long wings with a thud.

Blue illuminated the humid, forest clearing as he approached the place where Rey was making her stand. He had thought he'd been prepared to see her again in person — thought it couldn't make his heart stutter as much as their unexpected meeting through the bond had — but he'd been wrong. Seeing her standing there, waiting to face him down, her chin stuck out in defiance, the Skywalker lightsaber clutched tightly in her hands, he couldn't fail to be slightly awestruck. He remembered the first time he'd seen her, _really_ seen her, in the forest on Starkiller Base. She'd had the same look in her eyes then.

"It's always been just us, Rey," he told her softly, replying to the challenge he'd felt rippling through the bond. He stalked closer as he spoke but made sure to stay out of reach of her ‘saber arm. His own weapon hung from his belt — he could feel its familiar presence against the back of his arm — but he didn't reach for it. Not yet.

✦✦✦

It wasn’t long before the thumping of her heart was once again the loudest thing she could hear: the rush of blood in her ears only amplified with each passing second. Seconds that were bringing that pulsing pinpoint on her now-defunct navigator closer, closer, and then the agile TIE was slicing through the sky, closing in on the ragged tear her own ship had ripped through the trees. There were the narrow daggers of its wings, the dark orb of the cockpit, its wailing engines. He _had_ tracked her through hyperspace. It was enraging – she had been playing by the rules, and he continued to pull loaded dice from his sleeve. He was cheating, and she was dimly aware of how outrageous it was to be insulted, but her teeth were gritting in a snarl anyway. The implications of the First Order’s insidious technology would have to be dealt with later.

As the hatch opened, a quiver stole through her, although it had no place: she knew what to expect. His appearance through the bond had been jarring, after so much time, but she was ready to face him now. He did not have the influence of a masked, menacing ghoul on Takodana, and he did not have the benefit of wielding cryptic power, as he had in the woods of Starkiller. Now she knew that they were evenly matched.

None of it mattered. There was no preparing for him, just like there was no preparing for the loss of an engine mid flight. Her heart stopped and her breath vanished and he was as real as every moon.

He was, as always, an arresting apparition: stark black against the green, looming, unafraid. The tone he spoke to her with, soft when he’d just chased her roughly aground, lit a fuse in her, and it would have been much easier to answer if he’d reached for his own ‘saber, if he’d drawn on her and struck, but he did not – there was no jagged red blade to vent her fury against, and she took an unwitting step back as he advanced. He was wrong, of course; it had never been _just_ them. It had also been Luke, and Finn, and his own mother, everyone he’d senselessly tried to destroy in his mad rush forward. Even now, where did his fighters wait? She didn’t trust that they were truly alone.

Was that why he didn’t strike? Maybe he thought he didn’t need to – maybe he’d already rigged the scene. There was no need, as she was bitterly reminded; her x-wing was not going to rise again. She’d marooned herself in the effort to throw him off her trail, and so why should he cross blades with her? She was trapped. Her gaze darted to the scar branded across his face: how magnificent it had felt to deliver that blow, to know that she _could_ , to see the fearsome Kylo Ren brought to his knees with one swing of the blue saber.

Finding his eyes again, furious at how they seemed to pierce right through her, she kept a fire burning in her own, feeling a prick of urgency. He needed to be drawn into a fight, because that was the only way she could subdue him. It was what he could do without a weapon that was much more frightening: memories of a single gloved hand reaching out to paralyze her, or to bare her dreams and loneliness for him to rifle through at his pleasure, or to send her flying backwards with an unimaginable shock of force. It was only ‘saber to ‘saber that she would have a chance of overpowering him.

“I had a dream about you,” she countered abruptly, a bluff that was spoken with a steel edge. Half a bluff; she’d had many dreams, the real nature of which would forever go unspoken. It was meant to provoke her adversary to action, giving the ‘saber in her hand a threatening flourish, a tick of muscle memory that did not belong to her originally. “You were flying as far and as fast as you could. You were at the edge of the galaxy, in the dark. You never made it to the end. You were alone, and everything burned.”

✦✦✦

Kylo's nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath. The idea of her dreaming about him made his stomach feel strangely un-anchored within his body, like it was liable to drift away. However, the image her words painted, what she'd seen, was so desolate, so bleak, it weighed him down; it was the end to a story which best remained untold. The truth was, he'd imagined a galaxy burning in the darkness too, in his most desperate, depraved moments. They were the moments when he'd wondered whether he shouldn't just snuff out the last of the light in himself, the light Rey had reached out to try to grasp across the stars, the light that would sputter and die as chaotic, red plasma rent her body and tore away her breath. In _that_ galaxy, he might as well watch everything burn. In _that_ galaxy, he wouldn't _want_ to make it to the end.

He wasn't going to let that galaxy become reality.

"I've had dreams too," he said, moving to circle the clearing while he kept her opposite him, her blade always in his eye line, his body tense and ready to evade the strike he imagined was inevitable.

"Shall I tell you what I saw or do you already know?" Memories flickered through his mind — perhaps from his consciousness, perhaps from hers — of thrones and lips and skin touching skin, of eyes meeting, not blazing with rage but burning with something else, something far more powerful.

Kylo's chin lowered as he peered into Rey's eyes across the clearing, trying to see past the anger and hurt — oh, so familiar; he saw those same emotions reflected back at him every time he glanced in a mirrored surface — to the vulnerability beneath, the part of her that had reached out to him and told him he wasn't alone.

"Oh, you do," he murmured eventually, his own eyes narrowing a little as he recognised the bluff in hers. "All this time you've been running; I thought you were running from me, but that's not it, is it?"

✦✦✦

It was impossible _not_ to dream about him – she’d tried, just like she’d tried in vain to keep any memory of him from returning to her mind once she’d left Crait. Any intruding sensation of his presence at all, any reaching hand that wanted to wrestle its way back into her head. A valiant effort made in the daylight when her focus was on training, or helping to install new compressors, or determining where the Resistance could make their next quest for supplies and aid. There was nothing she could do at night, however. Then, dreams came as lucidly as if they _were_ memory, rooted in a reality that she could still feel whispering across her skin when she woke.

Stepping to keep the distance between them from faltering, pacing into her own half of the circle that they were creating, she was able to draw a faint glow of confidence from the ‘saber in her hand: as on Ahch-To, when she’d first allowed its power to thread into her blood, as alive and familiar to her as another limb. It felt the same way now, an extension of her ferocity and what she could do with it, bristling as her own improvised bluff was used against her. Half-improvised – she couldn’t remove herself from the truth entirely, and even less so as the reality of those dreams flared before them both.

He didn’t need to tell her, and she didn’t need to wonder if he saw what she was seeing – she could feel it. A wave that rose and crested, not only visions but also sensations, and it was what woke her in a diamond-bright sweat, breathless, often with the plea of his name still fading on her lips. _Those_ were the dreams that he would never know, that he shouldn’t ever know, and so to have them so effortlessly revealed now brought a humiliated heat to her cheeks. Furrowing her brow, blinking away the flustered chill that danced through her, she narrowed her own gaze as she felt herself being regarded, read, _seen_ in ways that no one else had ever seen her, troubled by the guilty pattering in her chest.

She couldn’t hold that dark gaze, feeling her own slip away and immediately regretting it, fingers tightening around the ‘saber. Her only weapon, and the only one she knew could deal any mentionable damage, and it was useless against everything he already knew. The only thing to do was keep moving, quivering from her legs up to her hands, tension like a coil slowly being drawn tighter, ready to snap.

“Get _out_ of my head,” she resisted before her grip on the reality she’d been fortifying could be tested any further, breaking from the circle they’d held. There was no room for misguided dreams or poisoned longing to bleed through if they were locked in combat, and that was the only defense she had left, ready to take rabid advantage of it as she leapt forward, no longer hesitating, the ‘saber lifted high above her head. To strike somewhere, anywhere, any part of him that would dismantle what felt like another terrible dream, another murmuring weight of darkness that wanted to press against her, but the difference was that now, awake, she could choose not to find comfort in it. Now she could hack at it, deny that it knew her at all, a strangled cry escaping as she made a vigorous swipe at the embodiment of darkness. “You haven’t seen _anything_ , you’re a liar.”

✦✦✦

She was quick, but he was quicker, drawing his lightsaber in a well-practiced flourish to block her attack. The blue plasma of her blade slid along the length of his, until it caught against one of his crackling, scarlet crossguards. He twisted his own weapon, feeling it lock against hers. She was close, close enough that he could feel the heat of her breath against his face as she snarled up at him. The fabric of his sleeves tightened over his biceps as he put pressure on her blade, holding her in place.

"I've never lied to you," he hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes wide and intense on hers, achingly _honest_ , illuminated purple by the meeting of their blades.

Her ire was telling. If he hadn't been sure that they'd shared dreams before, he was now. It also told him that he hadn't been far off the mark in his guess. He might never have lied to her but Rey was an expert at lying to herself. She'd lied to herself for years about her parents, even when the lie had kept her tied to a place that spelled nothing but hardship and misery for her, and now she was lying to herself about the connection they shared. Not the bond — she didn't know what he knew, after all; didn't know that they were tied by something far older and more vital than Snoke could have known when he'd falsely boasted about forging the bond between their minds — but the connection that made it impossible for her to hold his gaze for more than a few seconds, the connection that made her cheeks flush red at the idea that he knew her dreams, _shared_ them.

His breath expelled with a low grunt of exertion as Kylo put all his strength behind an upward thrust of his 'saber, knocking her backwards and out of the stalemate they'd been caught in. At once, he fell back into step, moving around her, a lupine glint in his eye.

He had been wounded the last time they'd fought each other, running on pain and anger and adrenaline. Rey was fast, strong and tenacious, and she'd clearly been practicing over the year since he'd last seen her, since he'd fought by her side on the Supremacy, but in a straight fight, she was no match for him. He was superior in size, strength and experience. It was only a matter of time before he wore her down and drove her to her knees.

But all that could be avoided.

"You don't want to kill me," he said steadily as he circled her, feeling confident in the conclusion he'd come to. "You wish you did — it would be easier — but you don't. So we can fight, if you want, if that's what you need to keep your conscience clear, but you _will_ be leaving here with me, either as my guest or my prisoner. The choice is yours."

✦✦✦

She knew how a lie felt, how it tasted, how it fell unsettled to the pit of the stomach. He had never lied to her, and she hated that she knew it was true. If anything, he’d been abrasively honest, infuriatingly so, even sensitive and gentle, sharing in her loneliness when she was certain it was hers alone. His callous view of the murder of his father, of his betrayal of Luke, of the things he believed he’d seen – they were real convictions, and she could see how deeply they ran once she was close enough to recognize herself reflected in his eyes, his unstable ‘saber crackling against the cyan hum of her own. There was nothing that could mask the imploring depths she once again felt herself being pulled into, his face a dangerous gravity this close, under that same wicked, purple fire that had fleetingly engulfed them on Starkiller.

The moment shattered, caught like a breath — he was stronger, far more refined and disciplined, and she felt their blades lock with an indignant grinding of her jaw, growling as she pushed back, calling upon every muscle in order to ward off the powerful thrust she knew was coming. The instant before his breath left him was just enough for her to wince, squeezing her eyes shut as their blades were freed, sparring antlers unlocked, and she was shoved back, out of the illuminated heartbeat of space between them. Knocked back, all the way back, she lost her feet in the slipping stumble to try and keep herself balanced, hitting the ground with a hard whuff, focused on keeping the blue ‘saber in her hand.

Rolling onto her side, she realized with a frosty anvil of dread to the chest that this was how it was going to be: his massive strength sending her to the ground over and over until she simply couldn’t rise anymore. She’d known that, of course, and had willingly chosen it over having to reveal anything of herself to him. And she chose it again, the nearness of his thoughts to her own like a throbbing bruise that was begging to be numbed. He was too close, his mind was too close, and the carnivore glint in his eye told her that there was much more yet that he could tear into.

Resting on one knee for a moment, steadying the breath that crept back between her ribs, she wanted to convince herself that there was no reason to be afraid. She’d spent months training, learning the untapped potential of her own body and what it could do during those rare moments when she was in tune with the Force, all lean muscle and acute focus. When she wasn’t crippled by self-doubt, or the anxiety of being discovered for what she was or was not. When she wasn’t discouraged by the ancient spirits who refused, despite her desperation, to be with her. How many moments were spent convincing herself that she wasn’t alone? There was only one person who had spoken those words to her, who had made her believe them, who had _lied_ to her before betraying the trust they’d so briefly fostered.

He was stronger; he was fierce and collected and intimidating beyond all measure, and the Force would always obey his command before she could fumble any control over it herself. His stamina in a raw, physical fight would outlast her own, and he would drain her of the reserves of spitfire aggression that fueled her now. But she’d be damned if he was going to have the satisfaction of calling her his _guest_ , and she’d be twice damned if he didn’t believe that she would spear the Skywalker ‘saber through his torso at the first chance, if he didn’t believe that she _wanted_ to kill everything he had electrified within her. 

Hurling herself forward as he came around and crossed her line of sight, another feral cry accompanying the charge, she took another blind swing with frustrated tears springing to her eyes, only wishing the choice was hers. It wasn’t, it never had been, and it would be so much simpler. 

“I _will_ kill you, for everything you’ve done. I will, I swear it, or you’ll have to kill me.”

✦✦✦

Kylo could feel the frustration rolling off of Rey in waves, tinging the Force all around them with its lividity, and he _knew_ she wasn't going to allow herself to give in to him. She couldn't admit the truth to herself now any more than she had been able to admit that her parents had abandoned her by choice. He could see the glint of angry tears welling up in her eyes, and feel the pain they betrayed. Still, it didn't stop his own sense of bitter disappointment seeping through him as she attacked again with her 'saber and her words, aiming to wound with both.

When _was_ he going to stop trusting her to make the right choice?

He knocked her blade away with a backhanded parry before rounding on her, his jaw working to press his lips into a petulant sulk.

If she needed a fight, he would give her a fight.

With the slightest roll of his eyes, he turned his blade and brought it down over his shoulder in a mighty slash, a streak of red plasma falling in a deadly (yet predictable) arc through the humid air. He moved smoothly, steadily, as though he were practicing forms in the training room rather than fighting for his life. Perhaps that was because, despite the conviction in her voice when she'd promised him death, he couldn't bring himself to believe her. She'd had the chance to kill him in Snoke's throne room; he'd lain unconscious at her feet, his 'saber hers to deal death with, and she had let him live. She had run away and left him to wake up alone, abandoned, to wallow in his wrested power without her. The indignity of it, the unfairness, the _betrayal_ , had cut him deep but she _hadn't_ killed him. For all her fighting talk, _that_ meant something.

Besides, he, himself, knew a little something about promises born out of anger.

_I'll destroy her, and you, and all of it._

He also knew how quickly they faded once the flames of rage had had time to burn themselves out. All he needed to do was run down the chrono.

✦✦✦

Now, even _now_ , with her fatal threat leveled against him, and every fiber of her being aching to see it through, he moved with levity. With grace, with casual indifference to the fury of her every strike, deflecting and blocking as if his body was so accustomed to the pattern of the fray that his mind was free to wander elsewhere. As if the confrontation demanded nothing of him at all, a book he had skimmed for years, as measured and practiced on his feet as if it were a dance he had performed hundreds of times, so much a part of the living nature of his muscles that he didn’t need to spare a thought for the next step, or the next blow that might rain down on him. Completely devoid of the spitting, reckless venom that made her own footwork so haphazard in comparison, a clean, crisp division between luck and skill. Her riled frustration was making her hands unsteady, her feet too undecided in determining her next step, and the disproportionate amount of rage she met each of his counterstrokes with was sapping her energy twice as fast.

The mere expression on his face antagonized her: a _sulk_ , shameless annoyance, as if she were nothing more than a smear on an otherwise clear viewport. A nuisance to be swatted away, an interruption, and the rip of red plasma that sheared down over his shoulder, while entirely predictable to a clearer head, caught her by surprise, grazing the point where her shoulder met her neck before she could duck away. 

A ripple of wretchedly bright pain sent her sprawling to the ground, a startled cry tripping free as the necklace at her chest split in two under the saber’s searing touch. Struggling back up before her attention could be drawn to the burn, she leapt forward as soon as she had mustered the savage strength to do so, wanting nothing more than to knock her opponent off his feet, to strike the detached pout from his face.

It was with her bare hands that she made this imprudent leap, the certainty of her defeat reducing her to an animal’s hysterical heart. That was the only guidance being fired to every raw nerve, and she chased every flicker of resentment, anger, betrayal or cynical grief that she caught emanating across the bond.

They were muted sparks – he was schooled well when it came to keeping himself reined in – and she knew that he knew it. His restraint was something she could not understand, just as she could not understand his cultivated manner of fighting, as the only outlet for her own furnace of white-hot emotion was this careful violence between them. It was the only place she could unleash the hot, nameless surges he ignited in her, the only time she could express without words her desolate fear, her utterly abject loneliness, and to know that she was being heard. He might not _want_ to hear it, and the clashing of their ‘sabers and their snarling might be far louder, but she could feel him feeling her frustration. Just as much as she could feel the knife of his disappointment, and his persistent trust that she would not uphold her threat, and it was the only language she felt she could fluently speak, this duet of red and blue.

It had been, anyway, until she’d abandoned even her ‘saber to instead throw herself at her pursuer’s body with the bawl of a desert canine. She would be captured, and she would be taken prisoner, but for now her rage and loss were demanding to breathe at any cost, buried alive months ago, threats and promises of death nothing more than the smoke of a fire that had long since escaped her control.

✦✦✦

Kylo felt the sudden lick of pain flicker through his own shoulder when his blade struck her body. It was a poetic echo of the searing agony she'd inflicted on him when they'd fought in the snow on Starkiller Base, the agony that had left its mark on his skin and on his soul, one as indelibly as the other.

Now, though, her pain came with no sense of satisfaction or triumph for him. Immediately, he withdrew the weight from behind the attack, fleeting expressions of shock and regret rippling across his face as he watched her fall. She should have been able to block him. She should have been _better_. Her anger was clouding her judgment. If only she'd let him teach her, he could show her how to embrace it, harness it, until she could master it and call it to serve _her_ , not the other way around. Breath hissed through his teeth in frustration.

He watched with wide, wary eyes as she scrambled to her feet, the Skywalker ‘saber lying forgotten in the dirt churned up by their circling. It was like watching a pot boil over, seeing the way her emotions bubbled forth from her. Frustration to surpass even his own oozed out of her every pore, her tears burning clean, white streaks of it down her flushed cheeks. The disturbance she wrought in the Force was no less palpable. She was quickly surrounding them with a sea of her pain and loss and loneliness, her anger, her frustration. It poured out of her, setting her adrift, but she was too afraid to reach out for the safe harbor and understanding she needed, even though she _knew_ where she would find it. Stubborn, little scavenger.

On her feet once more, she barely left him a moment to react before launching herself at him again, with fists and teeth and claws to match the wounded, inhuman cry that escaped her lips. At once, the red light that had been illuminating the clearing evaporated and a second lightsaber fell, discarded, to the spongy forest floor, tumbling away to rest, forgotten, close to its other.

Weaponless, Kylo stepped forward into her attack, feeling her blows rain down on him, and bearing them with stoicism and a guttural grunt, until his thick arms had engulfed her lithe frame and he could pull her to him, pinning her tight against his heaving chest.

"I know I hurt you," he rumbled, his chin dropping until his eyes found hers, and it was clear that he didn't mean the wound he'd just dealt upon her shoulder. "You hurt me too. But it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to be alone. Just stop fighting it."

✦✦✦

Lunging at the enemy without the benefit of any weapon aside from her teeth and claws must be a clear admission of her defeat, though she couldn’t bring herself to feel that way. It was just another attack made in the heat of a battle whose outcome was undecided, as senseless as it was to believe that. She couldn’t defeat him, not unless she landed another strike like she had on Starkiller, and even then, it might not be enough to leave him incapacitated on the ground, with only blood and defeat in his mouth. There was no victory in the thought, anyway, only a sore, blank spot in her mind, as if her head knew it and refused to supply the corresponding images. He was right, it would be so much _easier_ to want that, to devote herself to it, but as she’d already proven to herself by discarding her ‘saber, it would never be that easy.

But what was unspooling inside her opponent’s head, now that he was left standing with the only weapon, the consequences of her decision firmly in his hands? She could easily be victim to another slash of his blade, armorless as she was. Always, when it came to blows between them: always underprepared, untrained, bare and vulnerable. Adrenaline might be a numbing, explosive fuel but it wasn’t armor. She had none. It was further testament to Kylo’s restraint that he hadn’t already struck her down, and her brief encounters with the will of the Force couldn’t have been enough to convince him that she was a viable threat. She was a scavenger, no one, with no place in the story in which Kylo’s own legacy was so inextricably woven. He had generations of seething potential and an insight into the Force that she doubted she would ever glimpse herself.

She had only what she could scavenge, whatever was within reach that could be pilfered and sharpened and wielded. Impulse and rash energy and a bottomless hunger. Absurd bravery, or stupidity, which was precisely what had sent her flying into the wide dark of his chest. Crashing, actually, fists pummeling and legs delivering thrashing kicks, waiting to feel a decisive strike of the crackling red saber. At least then, maybe, for a little while, the roaring storm of pain would subside, though she knew exactly where she would wake up. That critical blow never came, however, and she was bewildered to feel herself caught in the cage of his arms, sturdier than any sheets of steel she’d ever had to wriggle her way through. No weapon? Just a grunt, and her thin frame being hauled in against the heavy rise of his chest.

If she’d discarded all of her anchors before, she was inadvertently finding another now, the close hammering of his heart briefly stunning her into stillness. Like finally finding solid stone beneath her hands after slipping and sinking and coming close to what must be drowning. Something to hold onto, the simple presence of another creature with a heart beating like her own, just _being_ with her. The shudder of warmth from being so near was paralyzingly tender. A brush of sincerity and understanding that she’d felt only once before, and that moment, like so many others, had been shattered almost instantly. Anticipating the same rift, she spent a moment panting, her own chest heaving, hands sliding to brace against his torso, ready to push him away. The words that followed did nothing to make that inevitable shove any easier, and neither did the hum of quiet electricity that seemed to rise to any point of contact between them. Limited only to their fingertips before, she could feel it under her own now, and across her back where his arms held her, eyes squeezing shut against the burning glaze of tears. What other way could it possibly be?

“I’ll never stop fighting it,” she refuted in a flagging murmur, more instinct than ambitious threat, lingering for a moment, quivering in the only contact that she knew would capture what it felt like to not be alone, fractured as it may have been. Lifting her gaze, determined to find renewed vigor that would tighten through her arms and shove their bodies apart, she instead found the same honesty that she’d seen through their crossed sabers, pain cracking down her chest. “Why is it you? Why does it have to be _you_.”

✦✦✦

Kylo's breath trembled on each exhale as he felt Rey's body grow still against his, her hands moving to rest between them at his chest. She was preparing to use those hands to shove him away, he knew, and yet she didn't. He could sense the conflict that still warred within her mind, hear it in her voice when she denied him again, but she had lost the conviction her anger had supplied her with. When she lifted her head, he could see that the heat had faded from her eyes, leaving them two wells of pain.

Her question, although expected, sent a spear of his own pain lancing through him to the deepest pit of his stomach. Why him? Why did she have to be connected to him? How many people in his life had the same thought? He thought he should have grown used to the sting of it by now but each new rejection smarted just the same.

But it wasn't a rejection, he realised. Not really. It was an acknowledgment, or the closest thing to one that Rey had uttered since the Force had reconnected them. Neither of them had chosen to be bonded to the other because what they shared wasn't something that _could_ be chosen. It was simply something that _was_. Something that had always been.

His jaw worked over a reply he couldn't quite find the strength to form: words of regret for a life wasted, words of scorn for those who had abandoned him to the darkness, words to explain all that he'd discovered, words of hope for what the future could be like. Ultimately, though, words meant nothing.

Actions meant something.

Sucking in a deep breath, the air seeming to spark nervous anticipation throughout his body as it seeped into his bloodstream, Kylo lowered his head and crushed his mouth against Rey's. He had no idea what he was doing, only that he had dreamt of this, of the way her lips would feel against his — so soft — and of all the ways he would kiss her when he finally got her in his arms. Admittedly, she hadn't usually been crying in his dreams, or unable to move her arms, but the way she made his heart hammer against his ribcage, as though it was trying to escape to become one with hers, had been entirely accurately imagined.

✦✦✦

It could’ve been anyone. She could have experienced this ridiculous, dangerous, bafflingly intimate connection with anyone, a galaxy full of countless, hapless humans that the thread of her fate could’ve been tied to. For what? Did it matter? She could’ve just as easily been left alone, forgotten like every other rusting, wasted scrap on Jakku, free to tally the days for as long as she could lift her hand to scrape the dashes into the wall of her hovel. Why? The dream would have sustained her, when she hadn’t amassed enough garbage to trade for rations. She would’ve at least had that to lean against, even if she knew that dream was dead at its core. What she had learned, however, was that there was life to be drawn from the cinders of something long dead. A hollow life, an emptiness structured only by the rigorous demands of scaling the corpses of war machines, wasting daylight collecting and then carting it back to someone who was going to pay her a quarter of its worth. What was it worth, anyway? What kind of life had she been buying, one day at a time?

One that she could understand, if nothing else, in its awful simplicity: work, eat, survive. Dream, work again. Maybe eat again. And then she’d been whisked up out of the desert and into the fable of Jedis and Sith and lightsabers that called out with the insistence of living, human voices. Another story that she’d had no choice but to try and survive in, her mind pleased to have the sharp distinction between right and wrong. She’d sided with the right to overthrow the wrong. It was black and white, a straightforward fight, with an enemy she could see. There was relief in that, at least. The destination was clear: defeat Kylo Ren, and let the light back in. As soon as she’d aligned herself with that clear quest, everything had splintered, just like the trees she’d hurtled her x-wing through. Everything that was so neatly stitched together was separated, frayed, light and dark bleeding out in equal measure. Then it was no longer black and white. She had begun to feel, somehow, splinters of that kaleidoscope reality digging under her skin, in her head, and she was not the lone pilot or the lone soldier she had assumed she would be. Her enemy was no longer a target she simply needed to reach out and destroy. She was forced to face him at the whim of the unbidden connection between them, and she was forced to see her hidden desperation reflected back in his eyes. How could she turn her back on a broken thing, when that was all she’d ever known?

She _wanted_ to, because it wasn’t fair; there was no plausible reason to feel anything at all for a murderer, a traitor, an apprentice of darkness. There was no reason she should find her surrender in the very same person who wanted to see her sense of purpose destroyed. Who wanted to see _her_ destroyed, her spirit, at least, her own resistance, and so how could she ever stop asking why? And how could it ever be anyone else?

Those questions only brought her to the same dead-end fury, it made so little _sense_ , and she didn’t know what she was waiting to hear. Bitter agreement that it was all for nothing? Stubborn protest that he knew something, had seen something, had some understanding far above her own? He seemed just as unmoored as she was, just as lost for words that would never coincide with how it felt. And how it felt to feel, holding his eyes in taut uncertainty before he was suddenly much closer, her breath hitching in a gasp as it unexpectedly met the heat of his mouth. A crushing heat, but the pressure and the suddenness of it, like the stroke of one blade against another, brought with it a sharp clarity. It was, despite how raucously _wrong_ a skittish voice in her head wanted her to believe, something she could answer. A parry she could return. A language that was new, and dumbfounding and alarming in its newness, but also uncomplicated, as simple as dream logic. The immediate comfort of muscle memory that she hadn’t yet achieved in fighting. They fit, their lips fit, and some part of her had seen this before, in the brazen frame of a sweltering dream she would wake from and pretend she’d never had.

There were no answers, she’d stubbornly adhered to that even as she’d demanded them, and so she couldn’t understand why this _felt_ like an answer. But for one heartbeat there was no room for understanding or explanation, or for the flickering sense of insult that was disappearing beneath the force of something much greater. Another heartbeat, and there was no defiant strength coming to her hands to push him away, not when she’d mistakenly stumbled into something she wasn’t aware she’d been looking for. There was an awareness in her hands — she was reminded of what she could feel beneath her palms — and there was the anxious pounding against her ribs, the anxiety of something that was close to being reunited with its other half. There was also the sensation of her lips parting, of sharing breath and blurring the lines of so many dreams where this strange heat melted everything else away, where words weren’t answers, and clashing ‘sabers weren’t answers, but maybe something else was. Where her belonging wasn’t waiting behind her, but was here, now, already found, and she leaned in and up to plunge into it as fiercely as she plunged into battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, a massive thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [RushRush4DReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushRush4DReylo/profile) for beta reading for us!


	3. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It took him a few moments to regain his voice but, when he did, he spoke with unbridled want, into the velvety skin close to the underside of her ear. "Let me have you, Rey."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 

When their fingers had touched across the stars, Kylo's world had changed. Rey had brought the galaxy into sharp focus for the first time in six years. He had been rudderless; Snoke's attack dog, kept on a tight leash with manipulation and violence and promises of power that, deep down, he knew would always remain unfulfilled. Rey had illuminated a way forward, a path out of the miasma. She had made him feel more alive with her understanding and her outstretched hand than anything else had since he'd been known by a different name and dared to imagine a very different trajectory for his life.

However, with the sensation of her lips against his, Kylo could have sworn he felt the whole universe shift. Certainly, nothing else in it mattered anymore, not when he could taste her hot breath on his tongue and feel the way she pressed herself up to meet his kiss. The clearing around them melted away and he was reminded of the way she appeared through the Force bond: no surroundings, just her. The Force knew what was important.

Kylo wasn't entirely sure what he'd expected — perhaps a well-aimed blow from her knee to his most vulnerable spot — but her fierce reciprocation hadn't been it. His embrace became less vise-like, freeing her arms, as his focus shifted, the need to still her blows succumbing to the sudden and overwhelming urge to _feel_ her. All of her: body and mind. The tension in his arms now was born of his desperation to keep her close, her body molded perfectly against the line of his as though he finally had her where she'd always belonged.

His fingers splayed and spread across her back, one hand moving lower to map the curve of her spine while the other rose to curl around the nape of her neck. She had coaxed his lips open with her own, breathing fresh, bright life into the cold, dark husk of his soul with every exhale. In return, his tongue lapped experimentally at the place where their mouths met, and the taste of her sent delicious shivers racing through him, strong enough that he could feel the aftershocks down to the very tips of his booted toes, almost six standard feet away from their epicenter. He wondered if she felt it too. He wondered if she could sense the way she affected him. He was vaguely aware that he was quickly surrendering any upper hand he had ever held but, _stars_ , it was worth it.

✦✦✦

The high-strung drive of panic was most familiar to her: the energy of survival, of confrontation, of defending what was hers, of hunger. The instincts that had raised her, and protected her, and they colored every action that came after. Pauses for reflection only led her into a deep trench of pain, one she worked to avoid when at all possible. Her plea for answers on Luke’s island had only plummeted her into loneliness, and then guided her to the solace of the person she should’ve stayed farthest from. She’d been warned to, she’d been told it was impossible to sway him, that his choice had been made. But what she’d felt when he’d brought his hand to touch her own had been light, unfiltered and beckoning, a signature on the vision of the future that bloomed before her. She’d believed that it had bloomed before him, too, that his path forward had been corrected, and the promise was sealed when they’d fought back-to-back in Snoke’s throne room. It _had_ been, fleeting as a falling star, and then she’d seen the stark truth.

He wasn’t going to turn, he wasn’t going to join her to finish the war and restore the balance that had been lost. He wasn’t going to help her kill her own darkness; he wanted it to flourish, to keep it as his own and use it in his virulent campaign forward — something she could not be a part of —, and so she had tried to sever the connection between them, seeing it for what it was: a mistake. She’d seen too much, but she also knew what she’d felt. It was what she continued to feel, and knew was flying through her blood now, everything alive, inside and out, body, mind and soul. The conflict between the three, which had brewed and poisoned her in silence for months, was flooded by unquestionable light. Now there was no one to bring that union crumbling down, and there was no brittle tension in the Force that could cause the illusion to snap. Now it wasn’t an illusion, and it wasn’t a touch being exchanged across leagues of stars. Now it was overwhelmingly present, it was staggering and immediate, and the warmth she’d felt in dreams, or in flickers across the bond, was nothing compared to the heat of a real body, one reaching for her own just as she was reaching for his.

She _was_ reaching, she could feel that, and with her arms freed from the cage of his hold, there was suddenly space to roam her hands, slowly, as if the entire vision might break beneath too much pressure, and there was that same jolt that rollicked through her when the Force urged them together. An energy that demanded that she see, and feel, but their encounters hadn’t ever gone on so long before. They’d never been uninterrupted, or felt so flush, or been anything _other_ than a fight or a vision. Now it was something else, and she felt just as untrained and fumbling as she did with a ‘saber crackling in her hand and no real knowledge of how to use it. 

There was also no dread dragging on her every movement, however, no bleak haze leaving her half-blind. Everything felt oddly clear, and despite the racing of her heart, there was a tide of relief at being pressed so close. The fitting of one piece with another, its only match.

It was new, and searing in a way that was completely different from the blaze of his ‘saber or the flames of her own frustration. It was hungry to feel and be felt, breath quickening at the hypnotic taste of a tongue grazing her own. A frenetic bit of contact that only assured her there was more, curving beneath the unfamiliar weight of a hand falling down her spine, and the heat of fingers fitting to hold the back of her neck. Places that had never been touched, tension flinching through her skin before just as quickly melting away, a breathless murmur escaping as she slid her tongue over the hot, soft places in his mouth where words had been. Inviting that same exploration back with a tip of her head, a hand wandered up from the thick line of his chest, discovering the skin of his neck with a quiver in her fingers that spoke of never having touched skin before. Not in this wordless way, tracing up to find the edge of his jaw, and then a cheek she could hold, not able to lean up enough, or in enough, not able to close enough distance to chase the taste that was dancing over her tongue, every shivering spark in his body with a partnered reflection in her own. A joined constellation, a mirror, a map, brushing herself in closer to claim, at least for this moment, the only place where her body had ever really fit, thinking maybe if stars had a taste, if light had a taste, it was glittering across her searching tongue right now.

✦✦✦

Kylo didn't think he'd ever been quite so aware of _sensation_ before. Normally he just existed in a space, only paying attention to the stimuli that directly affected his pattern of behavior, like heat or cold, or pain, or the prickle of fearful eyes on him. Now, however, he felt as though he'd transcended to a higher plane of feeling. His senses had come alive with the onslaught of new sensations Rey was visiting on him, hitherto unused synapses sparking anew with every brush of her fingers against his skin; at the warm, breath-stealing intrusion of her tongue in his mouth; at the heady scent of her — salt and earth and something sweet, like vanilla — as it filled his nostrils with every inhale; at the way she pressed herself closer as though she were trying to climb _inside him_ , to fill up all the cracked and hollow places in his soul with her light. It was intoxicating. He felt drunk on her, and he wanted _more_.

Blood pounded in his ears, a frantic beat urging him onwards as he curled his large frame around her. His leather-clad hands were growing bolder in their exploration of her with every moment that passed, now that he was more or less certain the threat from her fists had subsided, and he shuddered when they found the two firm rounds of her ass. He couldn't quite suppress the guttural groan that escaped into her mouth as he marveled at the feel of her and the way she fit against his palms. He had yet to discover a part of her that wasn't a perfect match.

Without relinquishing the stake his mouth had claimed on hers, his grip tightened at the tops of her thighs, pulling her flush against him, then hoisting her higher still, straightening as he did so, until her face was level with his. His muscles strained within the confining material of his sleeves but he was oblivious to any discomfort. His overriding instinct at that moment was, _closer, closer_ , and it was achingly easy — welcome, even — to let go of all his hard-won control and simply obey.

✦✦✦

The riot of her thoughts – such a hopeless mess – had gone silent. Now there was only heat and energy, but her understanding of those two words was being abruptly redefined. She knew heat; living in a desert for fifteen years, she was heat. She worked and slept and wept in it. Her blood was distilled fire from Jakku’s sun. It was why the things within her flamed: her aggression, her hunger, her desire. Other words which, up until now, had only pale meanings. Now, aggression was the force gripping every muscle: her torso, stretched up against a much heavier body, her taut back, though she could feel it softening with each pass of gloved hands, and the drawn muscles of her thighs. Everything poised as if a moment might come when she could pounce directly into Kylo’s body. She wanted to; she had no way of knowing what was _normal_ in such a confluence of the energy of two separate bodies, but she wanted to be his blood. She wanted to be his skin, to feel if it was as starved as her own, and she wanted to be his hands, to feel the bold pressure that was guiding them over her own body. In a rush unlike anything she’d ever felt before, she wanted his body to be as unguarded against her own as their minds were to each other.

And hunger – it was what she knew best, the yearning she had never lived without, and it had never felt so desperate. The insistent heat of his mouth on her lips, and the way she felt herself against his palms, fitting as if they were meant to touch in exactly this way. They weren’t, they couldn’t be, but the part of her that knew that was as silent as the rest of her head, only her heart beating so quickly that it was making a drum of her body, and she slipped a hand into tangles of black hair as she felt herself being pulled against him. The scent of him was dark and close, smoke and rain, blood and embers, and then she felt herself closer, higher, meeting him face to face. The first effect was to make kissing him much easier, pulling his head closer while she waged a private war on his mouth, inviting the intrusion of his tongue into her own. It was a carnal longing that she could never have explained, simply wanting his body to become as much a part of her own as she was trying to share his. A sunburst of warmth followed the knocking together of their hips, and she could now slide both legs around his waist, closing herself against him tightly, fiercely, and the pulse of animal heat that her body responded with lifted another gasping breath free.

“Kylo,” she began, a quivering whisper, and she knew what her intention should be: to pause, to brake. But that wasn’t what she felt and that wasn’t how it sounded, her free hand falling to slide in a supple touch over the rigid muscle of his arm. She could feel the straining tension in her own body, sleeveless as she was, and the touch was part curiosity, part fascination, and part blunt longing for the stroke she could give with no ribbed black sleeves in between. The passion of her dreams was cruel – touchless, sweatless, tasteless — and while the heat had her flushed when she woke, it always disappeared. Not now. Now, that heat was incendiary, under the galaxy’s blind eye, and she hauled herself in closer against his body. Chest to chest, hips pushing against hips, her own growing restless with a heavy, demanding pulse. Tightening her thighs in a bracket around his waist, she couldn’t keep from sliding over every point of friction there was to find, at their hips, under her hands, breast to chest, their mouths, anything that would let her consume this riled, addictive energy between them. When his name left her again, maybe it was a last-ditch effort to remind herself of who exactly she was dealing with, who she was blithely aching for, to cut through to sense with the infamy of his name. But she knew who she was dealing with, and she knew who she was aching for, and so his name left her honestly, as a breathless plea. “Kylo.”

✦✦✦

The sound of his name — his chosen name — on her lips did something strange to Kylo's insides, turning them to liquid fire. When she had come to him on the Supremacy, she had stubbornly addressed him by another name, and had betrayed him when he hadn't lived up to the expectations attached to it, like so many before her. Now, hearing her call him Kylo, with her thighs squeezing his waist, her tongue in his mouth and her hands on his arms and in his hair, while she pressed her hips so wantonly against his and spoke with pleas in her voice, he felt a kind of acceptance like nothing he'd known in his life before. It filled his whole being, then spilled outwards into the Force, too big to be contained by a human body, even one as large as his.

He was hers. Utterly. Completely. Only hers. And how he wanted to claim _her_ as _his_.

Moving blindly, too lost in her to do anything more than roughly feel his way, Kylo carried her towards his TIE, until he felt the thrusting barrel of a laser cannon, the tip of one of its long, lower wings, beneath his gloved hand. He followed it deeper, guided by touch, until the wing had become wide enough beneath his splayed hand for him to press Rey back against it, pinning her in place.

It left his hands free to roam, the slope of the durasteel panel effectively angling her weight against his midsection, and he put them immediately to good use, letting them run up her sides and under the long pieces of fabric that crossed her body. She was all lean muscle and gentle curves and the feel of her sent his mind reeling, aching to memorize every part of her.

His lips parted from hers and moved down to her throat, tasting the sweet tang of her sweat on his tongue. His fingertips were moving over the ridges of her belt, feeling the way it wrapped around her small waist, before following the holster down to her thigh. The leather wrapped all the way around her leg and he traced it avidly before curling his fingers through the strap and using it to pull her even more tightly against the burgeoning hardness at his groin. It elicited a groan that rumbled from his chest like far-off thunder, his head tipping forward to nuzzle reverently against her neck.

It took him a few moments to regain his voice but, when he did, he spoke with unbridled want, into the velvety skin close to the underside of her ear. "Let me have you, Rey."

✦✦✦

For as claustrophobic as his presence had felt, for as overbearing as the echo of his voice could be inside her head, she was frustrated by how much space remained between them. There was none, in fact, as she could feel her willowy body pushed against him from the hips up, but there was a hollowness in her that was deepening, slow and maddening. A famished hollow, and it was that need which had her pleading for him now, convinced by the magnetic pull between their bodies that there was nothing else to answer that call. There was nothing in her head at all, only the fire of her delight, the secret joy of exchanging human touch, and human want. A startled turn of her head followed the steel touch of something flat against her back, but her eyes were just as soon closing again at the trembling chill of hands moving over her ribs. Gloved hands, but the real, heavy pressure of hands, all the same, letting her weight yield back against the angled wing supporting it, her own palms scaling Kylo’s sides.

It felt like he was made of steel, like he was a cannon, like he had the skeleton of any of the battle-hardened, storm-battered war machines left on Jakku, that defied the wear of the sun and the sand and the years, like he couldn’t be broken. Her thoughts were lifted on the hot swell rising within the Force, a current that glowed beneath her fingers, and made the flagrant yearning in her head all the more vivid. No longer just the trappings of an overheated imagination, but a reality in her body, head falling back as his soft mouth descended to her neck, where the skin was already a flurry of dumbfounded pinpricks, writhing where she’d been pinned as his tongue sent a heart-pounding ache into the bow of her hips. 

The touch that was investigating the leather of her belt left the thin muscles of her torso tight, deliriously anticipating, but his fingers found her warm thigh instead, and she felt her leg jump even before being pulled against the stiff pressure at his groin — a solid ridge that stuttered her breath, body lustfully curving itself in to draw him to her, an arc in the small of her back bringing her hips throbbing over that hard line.

What more was there to do? It was a blissful relief, not having to _do_ anything – her body already knew, and her fingers dug into the black fabric pulled across his back, the groan rumbling from his chest falling over a quickened sigh of her own, one that rose into a sound of encouragement, one of her hands sliding to the wide belt at his middle to seek a clasp, a hook, anything that would allow her to pull it out of the way and drive him closer, before freezing at the husky words hummed directly beneath her ear. 

_Let me have you_ — for a heartbeat, she wanted nothing more; she wanted him to have her the way the night had the stars. Then she quailed, exploding into a frenzy of understanding. She couldn’t be caught, she couldn’t be _had_ , and she began to squirrel where she was being held, as if suddenly capable of sight, and she acted upon her first impulse, reaching a hand out to call Kylo’s forgotten ‘saber to her. The Force was surging, her own mind was ruptured, but she didn’t need control, just speed, waiting to feel the impact of the crude hilt against her palm before jerking it between them, teeth bared and cheeks flaming, knowing she could not rely on the strength of her body alone. She could not rely on her body at all.

He’d come to take her as his prisoner, nothing more, and she kept her fingers light on his ‘saber’s hilt, ready to ignite it if he failed to remember that.

“I _won’t_ give you anything,” she delivered in a low quaver, keenly aware of her ever-limited options, but refusing to abandon any of them, the rhythm of her heart shaking her entire body.

✦✦✦

He could feel her hands everywhere, his sides, his back, the clasp of his belt. Her fingers scrabbled urgently, and he felt that same insistent need to be free of it, to break down the last of the barriers that separated them and stopped them from becoming the joined thing that they were always meant to be. His breath reflected back at him from the curve of her neck as he moved one hand from her body to join hers in the urgent bid to free him from the clothes that constricted him.

But then she stiffened and began to squirm against him, and in the time it took for his lust-addled brain to piece together what was happening, what he was feeling in the Force, she had called his lightsaber to her and thrust it between them.

Kylo's hand fell away from his still fastened belt to rest redundantly against the shelf of her thigh, mirroring its pair. Still, he didn't move away. Despite the weapon poised between them, despite the way she snarled at him now, through lips that had, until a moment before, been rounded around the sighs he had elicited from her, he couldn't quite bring himself to let the contact between their bodies sever.

As a painful ache set in somewhere deep in his chest, he looked down, studying the unignited hilt of his lightsaber. Rey held it slightly askance, like he did, although her fingers looked so much smaller around the blackened casing than his ever had, even when it had been shiny and new, home to a whole and noble, blue kyber crystal. The weapon had seen so much violence since then, been forced to bend against its will until the crystal inside had cracked and bled. A flash of red plasma had been the final image burned into how many hundreds of pairs of eyes? Her fingers hovered over the ignition now, as his had countless times, ready to add him to that number, to etch his name beside his father's on the roll of fate.

His name... 

And what name was that?

He had thought she'd offered him acceptance, the chance to forge a future as the person he was now, not the shadow of someone he'd lost a long time ago. The concept seemed laughable now.

His chest expanded into the space between them as he drew in a deep breath, and when his eyes rose back to meet Rey's, it wasn't the glint of red plasma that illuminated them but burning rivers of hurt and disappointment that fed down to the depths of his broken soul.

"I could _take_ it — _you_ ," he growled, still keenly aware of the throbbing heat at the place where his hips had her pinned to his TIE. Still, he knew even as the words were leaving his lips that they held no honesty. He knew she would know it too — the lack of conviction in his voice was laughable. Perhaps, once, he would have been lost enough to the darkness to believe he was capable of it, but now... now Rey's light had pervaded him, an unconscious dilution over many months, topped up by the intoxicating injection of her brightness that her touch had offered, and now he just found himself sick with the desire for her to _want_ him.

His eyes closed on a sigh and his kiss-swollen mouth pressed together in a pained pout.

"You still don't understand, do you?" he breathed quietly. "It's _I_ who wants to give you _everything_."

✦✦✦

The threat of the lightsaber between them would be enough to provoke anyone else, or at least that was the assumption she was banking on – a jolt of shock or resentment. Hostility would be met with hostility, the spell would be broken, and he would tear himself away. It would be as quick an unraveling as she could hope for, but as she held onto the unfamiliar hilt, her other hand pressed now to his chest, she found herself waiting, anticipating a reaction that never came, a bitterness that never lunged, and he wasn’t pulling his body away. There was only the confounded beating of her heart and no challenge for her to confront in his eyes.

Her own gaze was instead resting uneasily on his face, watching as he watched, slim fingers curling around the ‘saber’s raw-wired hilt as if to assure them both that she was moments away from running him through. And still, he didn’t break from her; he wasn’t roused to violence. Violence would have been easier – their terrible, clashing thunder in the Force, drowning out everything that could possibly help her to believe that he was anything more. Anything more than a plasma blade to counter, a shadow to flee, and she wished he’d wrenched himself away, that she couldn’t still feel the humming heat of his body against her own, leaving her with the hallucination of wanting him above her, sharing a surrender that only the trees would ever see.

That longing could be throttled if only he would destroy their intimacy with aggression, because she knew she couldn’t do it herself. She couldn’t ignite the chaotic, red ‘saber any more than he could rob her of something she wouldn’t give. 

Lifting her eyes, she found them meeting the same dark gaze that had pursued her in life and in dreams, but now it was bright with pain. Not haunted emptiness, but a living, breathing pain, a blazing suffering, one that she could feel as much as she could see, so roughly gripped by the sorrow of that look that she winced against the blade of her own tears. He wasn’t going to take anything and neither was she, and she couldn’t keep the emblem of his bloodshed between them to suggest that she would. 

Gradually loosening her hold, allowing the ‘saber to fall, she could not force the distance that she had assumed would naturally be ripped between them. She couldn’t lift her hand from his chest, just as she hadn’t been able to shove him away when she’d first found herself caught in his embrace. She couldn’t pretend that the pressure of his body, that the heavy heat of being pinned to the wing of his TIE, wasn’t exactly where she wanted to be. Being so close had created a bright flame of white light, and she could feel it waiting to envelop them, to burn away the kindling of their pain.

Maybe she didn’t understand – she didn’t understand why she’d been plucked from Jakku, catapulted into a war that came from fables. She knew evil, she’d seen it plenty of times between the greedy and the starving, and what was more real? She’d longed to believe in the lost heroes of the galaxy, but how could she know that the Jedi lived? That the rebels had a fighting chance? That her loneliness would find its harbor in a murderer, the son of darkness? There was no reason to believe in anything but what she could see, and what she saw was her own desperation mirrored back to her, as deep as it ever was, and she’d never wanted _everything_. All she wanted was to know that she was not alone, leaning in closer to bring her face a breath away from Kylo’s, although he didn’t look like Kylo. The scar belonged to Kylo, as it always would, but the hurt was Ben’s, and it was the same hurt they’d once reached to ease within the shelter of their bond. Now the shelter was more than a vision, and so was he. Now they _could_ reach for one another, and who would ever know? Who would ever know that within the great, garish war, all she longed for was this hidden gem of light, one she could hold in her hands, sliding both palms up over his jaws, to his cheeks.

“ _You_ don’t understand,” she corrected just as quietly, drawing him closer, to bring his eyes to her own. She didn’t understand, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t feel, brushing that assurance hopelessly over his lips. “I see you. All I want is you.”

✦✦✦

Kylo's dark eyelashes fluttered when he felt the sensation of his splintered kyber crystal being moved away from him, and he opened his eyes when he heard the thud of the 'saber hitting the soft ground. Surprise. That was what he felt, at the sudden waning in her aggression. But then again, Rey always surprised him. He should have learned by now to never assume, never underestimate.

The gentle touch of her hands against his face was like a balm to his wounded ego, work-hardened skin guiding his gaze upwards to meet a look of openness and vulnerability that brought back memories of outstretched hands and flickering firelight. His own eyes widened in return, matching her silent promise of honesty, and although he wanted to interrupt her, to persuade her that he understood her better than anyone else ever could, he stayed silent and listened to her say eight words that had the ability to shake him to his core.

His nostrils flared slightly as his throat grew thick, and the muscles in his jaw worked furiously as he forced himself to swallow away the metallic prickling sensation at the back of his nose. He wished he knew the words to tell her that he saw her too, he wanted her too, just her, but words had never been his strong suit and he didn't think he'd be able to speak at that moment anyway.

Instead, he moved his face forward to meet her, forehead to forehead, his lips ghosting across hers, more breath than touch, and he let his mind fall open to her. He wanted her to _feel_ that he understood — that he hadn't, but that he did now. He needed her to see that he hadn't dared to dream someone would be able to see past his armor and still want the broken, twisted boy inside, who still clamored for light despite the darkness he'd been kept in. His whole life, he had been used for the power that he could afford others, or the power that they feared he might unleash if not controlled, and when she had come to him on the Supremacy, he had assumed that Rey was no different. That he was someone to be recruited, an asset to be won, if he couldn't persuade her to join him first. But she was different. She was special. He had known it all along but he hadn't trusted it. 

He did now.

The screech of a TIE fighter overhead split the stillness of the moment, and Kylo's head jerked up, making Rey's fingers slither down the line of his scar to his stubbled jaw. He was immediately alert, the glassy eyes of a moment before quickly becoming sharp and decisive.

"You need to go," he said, ignoring the gravel in his voice. His hands moved quickly to her waist and, grasping her tightly as he stepped back, he lowered her back to the ground. "If they find you here, you _will_ be taken prisoner and there won't be a thing I can do to stop it."

✦✦✦

There were absolutely no words to capture how it felt to see someone, to brutally see them, through the faults and strife and blame and the consequences of it all. How many times had she been warned of those consequences? That he couldn’t be turned, that his alliance couldn’t be forsaken, that he was lost. And how many of them had seen _this_ side? Who would ever know how it felt to have his bare, unmasked face beneath her fingertips, to look into eyes that searched her own, and seemed to find something there? Promises, peace, understanding – everything that was meant to be sacrificed in war. The gentle nudge of his forehead against her own was solace enough for her eyes to fall closed, a held breath escaping softly. In the dark behind her eyes, there was a sudden aurora of light, the stirring of hope and fear and loss that must have colored Kylo’s every perception, things that were revealed and offered to her now in a way that words would never suffice to convey. The cry for light at the glossy heart of the darkness, a heart she hadn’t lost faith in, even when reality strived to paint him as a monster, a gruesome nightmare, a terror, and if that had been true, she wouldn’t be standing where she was right now.

She wouldn’t be watching his nostrils flare, or the fine muscles of his jaw bunch and tighten, and she wouldn’t be glimpsing that starlight sheen in his eyes; she never would’ve allowed herself close enough to do so. She wouldn’t be trading her own breath for his, guiding the river of her own silent tenderness to join with his own. The clarity was crystal-edged, shimmering, and then it was shattering, her own head lifting to find the TIE slicing through their private sky. A screeching reminder that it wasn’t theirs alone, and that it wasn’t going to be, her fingers slipping over the rough road of his scar, and when her hazel gaze came back down, it found that the authoritative glint had returned to Kylo’s eyes.

She couldn’t _go_ — her ship was smoking in the rut she’d crashed through the sallaps — and her brow ticked, protesting. “No,” and her own voice was just as decisive, too protective of what she’d just unearthed to give it up so soon. Dropping her fingers to his elbows once her feet were back on the ground, her attention flicked to his grounded TIE, and then back to his face, resolute.

“Take me prisoner, then,” decided without hesitation, regardless of the paradox it blatantly was. But if she was going to be captured, who could she trust more? It was the same blinding insight that she’d come to on Ahch-To – if they were together, if their light was unified, or if there was any chance that it _could_ be, how could she turn away? She’d placed herself into his hands once before under the auspice that he would not betray her. They’d misunderstood one another then, and turned to fear and disappointment, and maybe her gravest mistake was in trusting the same misguided instinct twice. The light was there, she could feel it, she had seen it, tasted it, and if she left now, how many more months of separation would they have no choice but to endure? The war would rage on, and she couldn’t imagine trying to cross a galaxy of stars to find the connection that was in her hands right now, and the thickness in his voice prevented her from considering any other option. When the moment came, he would turn; she’d seen that, and perhaps she’d misjudged him the first time, but she knew it to be true. It still was.

“This _is_ how we stop it. All of it. I’ve seen it,” she clarified without looking away, feeling certain that he must’ve seen it, too. She’d trusted him with her life on the Supremacy and she felt there was no choice but to trust him with it again now, buoyed by the light she’d just been so fleetingly warmed by, burning through the cracks. “Take me with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, a massive thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [RushRush4DReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushRush4DReylo/profile) for beta reading for us!
> 
> We hope you've enjoyed these first three chapters being posted in quick succession and that's it's whetted your appetite. We have quite a few chapters written, but we're going to settle into a weekly posting schedule now, to pace the chapters out and give us the time we need to edit and polish each one in between posting. Therefore, you can now expect an update every Friday (although that's not to say you won't get a cheeky one posted in between from time to time 😉)! 
> 
> As always, please do share your thoughts and comments on this latest chapter! They mean so much to us. ❤️❤️❤️


	4. Wriggling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There's only one seat," Kylo told her, ducking under the wing brace only to hoist himself up the side of the _Whisper_ 's spherical body. Once he reached the top, he stopped, turned, and held out one gloved hand to help her up after him. Not that he thought she needed it. His hand was just missing the feel of her beneath his fingers. "You can sit beneath the hatch if you want. There's room." He paused, running his tongue over his lower lip, still feeling the phantom pressure of her mouth there. "Or you could sit with me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 

It had to be a trick. A trap. A test. Didn't it? She had to be waiting for him to make a misstep. Perhaps she thought he'd relish the idea of making her his captive, and in truth, he couldn't deny that the idea had once sent shivers of excitement racing through him, but now he was desperate not to break the fragile understanding they'd forged with their minds and their words and their bodies.

Kylo's eyebrows drew together in confusion, his dark gaze sweeping her face in search of clues that she wanted him to defy her, but her tone was decisive, leaving no room for argument, and her hands lingered on his elbows, keeping him close, rather than grasping at his offer of a way out. His anxiety was soothed by the trust and determination in her eyes, which held his unflinchingly with their wide earnestness, and Kylo felt his face relaxing slightly under her gaze.

_Take me with you._

Kylo wanted nothing more. He wanted her by his side — he knew, with complete certainty, that he belonged at hers — and, although he might never be able to turn, the way she wanted him to, the way she'd said she'd seen, he _did_ believe that only they had the power to bring balance to the Force. Together.

His chin dipped slightly in a nod, acknowledging the trust she was placing in him and pledging his loyalty in return. Again, she was preparing to throw herself into the maw of danger _for him_ , and this time he would ensure she came to no harm. This time, he would give her a reason to stay.

Letting go of her waist, urgency outweighing his natural disinclination to be parted from her, Kylo extended his two hands and pulled both their lightsabers to him on dark tendrils of Force energy. He clipped his own to the outside of his belt, then shot Rey an apologetic glance before fastening the Skywalker 'saber beside it. If she showed up on the _Finalizer_ , in his custody, yet inexplicably still armed, it would just cause trouble for the both of them. Still, he had the good grace to look down at his boots as he stepped around her, turning his attention to their transport out of there.

"There's only one seat," Kylo told her, ducking under the wing brace only to hoist himself up the side of the _Whisper_ 's spherical body. Once he reached the top, he stopped, turned, and held out one gloved hand to help her up after him. Not that he thought she needed it. His hand was just missing the feel of her beneath his fingers. "You can sit beneath the hatch if you want. There's room." He paused, running his tongue over his lower lip, still feeling the phantom pressure of her mouth there. "Or you could sit with me."

✦✦✦

He wanted to delineate the trap before he dared take another step forward – she could see it in his face as much as she could sense the wavering hesitation in the bond, but as it had been the first time, her gamble now was guileless. There was too much to be gained, too much to be saved, and it was all happening much too quickly for her to have constructed a devious plan. There was only the simplicity of knowing that they were far less dangerous together than they were apart. That had to be true if everything she’d just felt was real, and because that bright energy was still beating gently in her blood, she knew it was. She also knew that her eyes reflected that – where there could have been deceit, there was only hope. His wariness was expected, and probably raw instinct as much as his sharp shift back to duty, the lifting of a sturdy shield. The edges of that tension also melted as she studied him, and the dip of his obliging chin allowed her to soften her own grip.

The two lightsabers obeying the pull of his hands drew her gaze down to follow their path, her own hand rising in preparation to be handed the Skywalker blade. This gesture was met instead with the blunt realization that the lightsaber was not going to be returned to her, gaze narrowing as she was left to watch it be clipped to Kylo’s belt instead, a bit of prized collateral beside the red blade that already had a place there. It made sense, and her irritation only bristled long enough to know that being brought before the First Order with her weapons still at her waist would only invite discord right from the start. Even so, it wasn’t a development she welcomed, displeased to find that her new host seemed to anticipate as much, mindfully avoiding the glare she chased him with. Steadying her annoyance with a quiet breath, silently satisfied with the knowledge that the ‘saber could still be called to her hand if the need arose, she withheld any commentary to let her gaze climb back up over the knives of the _Whisper_ ’s wings.

There was, naturally, only one seat in the ship’s piercing eye, meant for a lone pilot, a fact whose full implications she didn’t entirely acknowledge as she stole after Kylo, beneath the wing, and then up the predatory orb’s side. More easily done with a hand to brace against, eyeing the enemy ship in all its sleek, aggressive beauty, much finer than anything the Resistance could ever hope to procure, and then glancing at the equally sleek black glove offering to assist her up. Curling her hand around the length of his fingers, she used the pressure to lift herself higher, ignoring the thrilled quiver that fell from the tops of her shoulders down to the base of her spine at the press of cool leather against humid skin. Those gloved hands had been mapping her body over the thin, rippled layers of fabric that swaddled her torso now, and she’d felt them at the naked skin at the back of her neck, and she released his fingers before her curious thoughts could be lured toward images of a gloved hand sliding smoothly over her bare torso, imminently becoming a bare hand sliding over her bare torso, shuffling her focus back to the ridiculous solution Kylo had come to.

“I am not sitting beneath the hatch,” and on that point there would be no argument, refusing to be ferried back to the _Finalizer_ like a stolen sack of cargo. The whimsical possibility of piloting the terrible little ship herself opened up across the sky of her imagination, and she knew it would never be allowed to pass, regarding the interior of the _Whisper_ with a quick, calculating eye before once more regarding the tall, shadow-draped figure who was outlining her options for her. The flicker of his tongue against his lip, a momentary wet shine that had her unconsciously mirroring the same action, spurred her to look away again, dropping into the sphere that had only ever been designed for one. She dulled her tone to speak as if she had only the logistics of unproblematic flight in mind, as if there was no flutter in her body whatsoever at the suggestion of nestling her hips into his lap.

“Let’s go, then. I’m sure it’d be smoother if I was flying it, but it would also be safer if I had my own weapon, which I guess is neither here nor there, so, after you.”

✦✦✦

Kylo watched enrapt as Rey's fingers closed around his hand, using him to pull herself upwards. If someone had told him, when he'd offered her his hand amongst the smoke and flames and death of Snoke's ruined throne room all those months ago, that this would be how she would finally take it, he would never have believed them. But her hand was hot in his, her grip tight, and her fingers felt solid; she was real, and she was really coming with him. She dropped down into his TIE, even as he watched, and he quickly clambered in after her.

He fastened the hatch as he descended, trapping them together in the tight space. It was tight enough to induce claustrophobia, or would have been if he'd been squeezed into the space with anyone but Rey. As it was, he just found himself fighting to keep his heartbeat under control as he sidled around her and sunk down into the pilot's seat, for fear that she might be able to hear its galloping thuds echoing back from the concave, segmented viewport.

He shifted slightly in the seat, trying to pluck surreptitiously at the legs of his leather pants to adjust the way they sat around his groin, then lifted his feet onto the pedals and engaged the ship's twin ion engine.

The _Whisper_ had been built to his exacting specifications, designed specifically to accommodate his hulking frame, and as a result, there wasn't much room between him and the control paddles. It was going to be a tight fit. The thought made a muscle beneath his eye, amongst other things. His jaw set in what he hoped was an unaffected line, he turned his head to look up at Rey.

✦✦✦

With the finality of the hatch latching shut behind them, the size of the _Whisper_ ’s cockpit became smotheringly clear: it was truly only intended for one sitting body. A husky body, to be sure, designed as it was to accommodate the only man permitted to pilot it, and her gaze needed no more than a blinking second or two to take in the whole configuration. A straightforward apparatus intended for straightforward procedures, holding herself still where she stood as the air shifted closely against her back and legs, Kylo’s body edging past to claim the pilot’s seat. Keeping herself out of the way, as much as was feasible, she let her gaze slip down over the curve his body made in the seat, a curve she was going to have to somehow maneuver herself to fit in against, glancing at the shine that dove across the toe of his boots as they took to the pedals.

A glance out the viewport was her final farewell to the planet that was now hosting the carcass of her own ship, regretting briefly the scrap she was forfeiting for the sake of their quick departure. It wasn’t as if any of it would be returning to the Resistance, anyway, and she wasn’t sure when she could count on making an appearance herself. Leaving without a single static burst of communication was not how she’d planned for the Dantooine expedition to unfold, but then again, nothing was unfolding as she’d imagined. Save those images she _had_ seen, and if among those rippling, glimmering outlines she’d glimpsed herself enthroned with Kylo Ren, she would not have expected to find herself beholding him in the seat of his TIE, looking up at her with what seemed to be the exact same sort of flustered acceptance.

Giving the scene any more time to burn itself into her head was not going to make the next step any easier, and she set her own lips into a grim line, brow knitting as her eyes swooped one last time over his limber frame before ducking in to seat herself against it. A cumbersome task, stricken as she was with the need to be both swift and careful, fearless and gentle, solid and light. All of which, together, amassed into a graceless motion of bumping in first with her side, hesitating, knocking an elbow and then turning to line her back up with his chest, pushed close, a hand dropping to brace against his thigh as she slid down to rest her hips against the hot bar of his pelvis. Letting out a breath, deciding there was little she ought to say, she focused instead of lodging her hips back where they naturally fell into place, supported by the bend of his body. With her gaze flitting like a trapped bird, she dared half a glance back over her shoulder, waiting to be corrected, and then focused ahead, feet prancing for the moment it took to arrange them as neatly as she could, heart prancing anxiously on after that as she lifted a hand to brush back the hair that clung to her burning cheeks.

✦✦✦

Kylo held his breath as Rey maneuvered herself onto his lap; it was far easier to do that than to try to remember how his lungs were supposed to work. Apart from the little huff that was expelled through his nose when she elbowed him, he stayed stock still, waiting until she had settled against him before finally exhaling between lips that trembled slightly. The same thought struck him as had when they'd been entangled below, on the forest floor: how well her body fit against his, like she had been made in the image of his negative space. Her slender back curved to fit the contours of his chest, with her shoulder nestled just beneath his chin, and her ass— Well, he couldn't bring himself to think about the way her ass nestled against his groin or he'd render himself completely incapable of focusing on piloting.

Kylo's hands had, throughout the maneuver, been resting safely against either side of his bucketed seat, out of the way, unable to deliver any unsolicited touches. Once Rey had grown still, however, and sent that little half-glance over her shoulder, he lifted them past her to pull the control paddles towards them both.

The TIE rose swiftly into the air, leaving behind the clearing that had inadvertently been the stage for events which — he was willing to bet — had changed his life, but Kylo was far too preoccupied with what was happening inside the ship to waste wistful glances on the scenery. Each little movement he made, as he piloted them up through the atmosphere, shifted Rey against him, moving them as one. It was fascinating and slightly intoxicating. Only the appearance of two TIE/sfs on their flanks prompted him to actually start concentrating.

"What are your orders, Supreme Leader?" came a static voice through the _Whisper_ 's comlink system. Kylo cast Rey a sidewards glance.

"I've got the girl. All fighters fall back to the _Finalizer_."

He'd thought, if he ever returned to his flagship with Rey in his custody, he'd feel far more proud of himself than he did right now. As it was, all he felt was vaguely apologetic. After all, Rey was so much more to him than simply 'the girl'.

Still, apologies weren't in his nature. He couldn't change what was past, and he couldn't create new roles for them in this war. He may not know what was going to transpire once he got Rey back to the _Finalizer_ , but he thought he _could_ do something to ease the sting of being spoken about as though she were a prize to be won.

As the two TIEs screamed out ahead of them, to join the swarm that was beginning to gather as the fighters regrouped, Kylo eased off on the acceleration and let his grip loosen around the control paddles, eventually lifting his hands away.

"You wanted to be in control," he remarked softly, the offer implied.

✦✦✦

It certainly wasn’t the experience of crouching beneath the hatch, which still might have been the more sensible option, but once she felt securely in place, or at least secure _enough_ , a breath flooded out from where it had been tightly coiled low in her lungs. Glancing down at the hands coming in from either side to seize the control paddles, she fluttered her own fingers in a ghost of the same movement, not able to quiet the impulse to have some sort of control. She had none – offering herself as a captive had stripped her of any agency she’d held. At least anything more than the diplomacy she felt certain Kylo would prefer she arrive with, and as soon as that thought dappled across the many others running through her head, she realized she could not, in fact, be certain of anything that Kylo might prefer. She’d been mesmerized by the light she’d seen, had slaked her agonizing thirst with it, her months-long questioning, and had thrown herself heedlessly ahead, just like she had on the island, against Luke’s grizzled judgment.

The thrust of the TIE clawing its way up into the sky made Kylo’s body her center of gravity, her shoulder blades pushed firmly against his chest, the solidity and texture of which she could feel in vivid relief against the taut muscles of her back. The practiced motions of his piloting moved her smoothly against him, as naturally as if they were simply one pulse on top of another, and she could feel the blue rush of flight, of broken atmosphere and dabs of light, as well as the narrow channel of his concentration, which seemed to be triggered by the two TIES that had come to escort them.

The crackling voice through the comlink spooked her out of her awe, eyes lifting from the gloved hands on the control paddles to the viewport, higher to the sky they were retreating back into, and then sideways to catch the glance that came over her shoulder. She’d been _the girl_ on Takodana, finally in the hunter’s jaws, and she’d been _the girl_ on Starkiller Base, the no one who Luke Skywalker’s ‘saber inexplicably answered to. She was still the same girl now — _you_ , he’d marveled in open disdain, _a scavenger_ — and it was the only title she’d earned or needed, but hearing it was still a thorn that pricked her, having to wrestle back the temptation to interrupt the short exchange. The spurn of being no one was like a kick to the ribs, and she looked away before anything other than irritation could reach her face, fixing her steely gaze on the two compliant TIEs.

A low voice, nearly in the shell of her ear, broke that stung focus, gaze returning in bemusement to the control paddles, which were now free of his leather grasp. Looking over her shoulder again, this time in frank surprise, she studied Kylo’s pale face, excitement rapidly bubbling over distrust, and an eager hop of her hips brought her sitting straighter, leaning forward to take the controls. A TIE, a nimble beast that probably had no trouble at all with its compressor, bridled and at her command — looking back again when she still couldn’t quite believe it, she then gave herself over to the opportunity completely, bright gaze finding the pack of fighters that had ceased their prowling to return to their master.

The same destination they were bound for, but once she had the _Whisper_ ’s controls under her hands, turning with her guidance, she was choosing an open patch of sky, steering the ship higher, eyes flicking over the glow of indicators out of habit. An exhilarated prickle of sweat warmed the back of her neck, recalling her hands on the _Falcon_ ’s controls, and the battered x-wing’s, and now Kylo’s own sleek transport, veering away from the congregating TIEs to instead race into the empty dark, the electricity of that freedom flaring through her lithe body. When had flight, sheer flight, even in the thick of danger, not come with a chirp of a laugh? 

“It’s light! It _wants_ to go,” she observed in shameless admiration, as it was so unlike the hulking, tired _Falcon_ and the half-limping x-wings.

✦✦✦

Kylo's breath hitched as Rey veritably bounced in his lap in her eagerness to straighten up and take the TIE's controls. The excitement she'd provoked from his body earlier had been bubbling just barely beneath the surface, and her squirming against him like that was doing nothing to preserve his dignity — nothing whatsoever. He could only hope that she was too preoccupied with her new-found control over the ship to notice the thickening beneath her ass. Earlier, when they had been wrapped around each other in the clearing, there had been a delicate but even distribution of power; he had taken what she had given and surrendered himself to her in return. Now, though, he was pinned beneath her, with even his own body turning traitor on him, and there was nothing he could do but bear it in pained, embarrassed silence.

To make matters worse, he didn't have the faintest idea what to do with his hands now that they weren't busy controlling the TIE. Hesitantly, he brought them down to rest at either side of her waist, over her leather belt, letting his fingers flatten against her. Her stomach was tight with tension from the enthusiastic way she leaned forward, and Kylo could feel the tensing of her muscles beneath his palms when he splayed his fingers across her torso.

He could also feel the way her aura had changed as soon as she'd taken the _Whisper_ under her control. Her Force signature always glowed with latent light, but now her exhilaration shone out of her like a strobe in the darkness. Was this what he had been missing all these months? He'd glimpsed it before, when they'd fought side by side on the _Supremacy_ , but a defiant spit of flame was nothing compared to the pulsing, radiating brightness that was borne out of her on wings of excitement. It was dazzling. She was dazzling.

And she was a good pilot, he realized, tearing his eyes away from the side of her face for a moment to peer out of the viewport. The _Whisper_ , like the _Silencer_ before it, was a temperamental beast, sensitive to a fault, but as she'd predicted, she was managing to keep it smooth and steady on its new course. He knew they couldn't deviate far from the _Finalizer_ without arousing suspicion — what was the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy doing taking his prisoner for a joy ride? — but he couldn't quite bring himself to tell her to turn back either. Not just yet.

✦✦✦

Who wouldn’t feel like the uncontested Supreme Leader of the First Order, if not Emperor of all the stars, while sitting in the pilot’s seat of the _Whisper_? It boasted not only that venomous beauty of its black hull, but also the elegance of its handling, and _speed_ , delicious, untouchable speed. Or so it felt, at least in comparison to the relics she was accustomed to flying, forgetting for a moment everything the impressive little machine symbolized. A herald of death and destruction, and now in possession, as she’d witnessed firsthand, of that rule-bending technology that had allowed Kylo to stalk her through hyperspace. Awful, sinister – it was going to deliver her, soon enough, into the hands of the enemy – and that fact did nothing to subdue her elation. It was a joy to fly. Perhaps, after being stranded so long in the desert, streaking across the endless sky would always be a joy, regardless of whose ship she was flying.

And, as she couldn’t forget, she was already in the hands of the enemy. Literally – his hands were resting at her belt, against her lean torso, made leaner with the excitement drawn through every muscle, braced against the hurtling rush. At first, it felt natural: the steady weight of his hands, holding her as she held his ship, and it simply felt like the structure offered by a firm seat. Something to take for granted, something to hold her in place as she arced the _Whisper_ in a long, deep sweep. But then she became aware of his fingers spanning her sides, the remarkable breadth of his hands seeming to capture the full swell of her ribcage, and the realization that his warm palms were on her in such a way diverted her lively gaze back down. Away from the tract of sky she’d been cleanly keeping to, the sight of his gloved fingers causing her own to slip, and her arrow-straight steering of the TIE was compromised by the skittering of her heart. Her slackening hands returned to attention too late, her gaze snapping back up in time only to realize she’d lost her focus, immediately overcorrecting with a jerk, and banking the sensitive ship hard to the right.

Cursing breathily, finding the sleek craft eager to correct itself, or eager, at least, to follow every nervous twitch of her fingers, she centered her flustered sight back out the segmented viewport. Re-settling her hips, she found herself having to repeat the movement, and then again, freckled brow creasing as she was interrupted by a rigid length of pressure.

“If you didn’t insist on keeping both ‘sabers, you might be able to keep one or both of them out of the way,” she chided without thought, mind calibrated toward resuming her relationship with the _Whisper_ ’s touchy controls. The dull, heavy pulsing in her hips was merely another distraction, squirming as it only seemed to intensify with the pressure mounted from underneath, tracing a wide circle around the _Finalizer_.

She was reluctant to have to rein the TIE back in at all. How many pilots in the galaxy would know how captivating it was to be contained within that tight orb, held in the protection of the angled needles of its wings? Fierce, deceivingly simple and impossible to catch – she was jealous, suddenly, that she could never call the ship her own, curling her fingers around the paddles and curving the _Whisper_ in a controlled orbit back toward the flagship, relishing her unsupervised maneuvering of the TIE for as long as she was able. Unsupervised by anyone who might question her enjoyment of it, anyway, distractedly angling a slim thigh out in order to slip herself further back against the body behind her, against the knob of pressure she’d felt compelled to complain about.

✦✦✦

She was going to kill him. He should have listened to her earlier when she'd promised him death; he was suffering the consequences of his oversight now. The way she wriggled in his lap was almost unbearable, starved of touch as he was. He felt as though he was on the verge of spontaneous combustion. Fire surged through his veins, caught in an endless loop, and although it begged for release, none came. Even when the TIE jolted from an overzealous turn, and he was able to use it as an excuse to exercise his grip around her waist, pull her tight against his groin, and squeeze his treacherous cock between their bodies to silence its incessant throbbing, the relief was minimal and woefully short-lived. Regaining her control over the fighter also had her resettling in his lap, and the way she nestled her ass against the hard length of him, over and over again, almost had him coming apart beneath her.

Out of desperation, he closed one, strong forearm around her stomach, and pulled her flush against his chest again, holding her blessedly still, if only for a moment.

"That is not a lightsaber," he gritted out, his mouth close to her ear and his jaw tense. "And it won't go away if you keep _wriggling_ on it." He let out a shaky breath, thanking his lucky stars that she couldn't see his face at that moment, or the blush that he could feel burning across his neck and face, right up to the very tips of his ears.

"They're waiting for us on the destroyer," he added grimly after a moment, his grip loosening slightly from around her waist as he fought to regain his composure. "I'll take over the controls again before we dock." Arriving aboard the _Finalizer_ with a raging boner and a beautiful, fiery captive in tow might go unquestioned by a legion of red-blooded Stormtroopers, but a supposed captive piloting the Supreme Leader's top of the range TIE/wi in to land would be significantly less explicable, and Kylo certainly didn't presently have the brainpower required to think up a plausible explanation.

✦✦✦

She was not _wriggling_ against anything – there was no customary seat to use for balance, and so she was making do with what she had. A lap that, while durable, was far from being smooth or unobtrusive. The nature of which was emphasized for her as she felt his iron arm locking around her middle, stilling the exuberant energy chiming through her. Just long enough to illuminate the truth of the matter, which was that both lightsabers were still clipped to the side of his belt, apparently, and were not rolling beneath her tailbone, although everything in her body proclaimed otherwise. Schooling her features into passivity, which hardly mattered if she kept her face fixed forward, she spared a glance down, heat flurrying up from her taut middle all the way down to her palms, choosing to maintain her silence instead of refuting what she was being told, a truth she could confirm through feel, anyway.

It was, after all, the same stiff prodding she’d felt while pressed to the TIE’s wing, and she had only briefly experimented with pushing herself flush against it before their course of action had been redirected. She was flush against it now, however, her back pressed adamantly to his chest through no doing of her own, his husky voice filling her ear. So, it wasn’t a lightsaber, and it wasn’t going away.

A fiasco she wouldn’t be personally fretting about for long, brown-green gaze rising to acknowledge the destroyer they were bound for. Who all ‘they’ consisted of was a question that she was sure would be answered soundly enough, leaving no uncertainty as to where she stood. As during her first foray at establishing this same bridge, however, she felt no fear. There was the worry of preserving the connection between herself and the oftentimes unreadable Supreme Leader, but it had outlasted the murder of his previous master, and it would outlast the baffling explanation he would have to provide to whoever had the gall to question him now. If there was anything to question – she’d surrendered, and he was simply bringing her aboard.

The possibilities of what would happen after that point – where she would be kept, for what outward purpose – were flitting across her mind, eyes lingering on the _Finalizer_ as she slowly released the controls, obeying as Kylo asserted his intention to take back the role of pilot as they docked. She could land the finicky ship herself, and she might have interjected with her ability to do so if she hadn’t been possessed by the urge to take over something else. Maybe it was the glowing river of adrenaline that their spontaneous flight had brought, or maybe it was the approaching end of their time being cramped together in the _Whisper_ ’s eye, or maybe it was the fact that Kylo had just sentenced his focus back to careful, stately piloting, and had likewise sentenced his hands back to their post at the control paddles, but something burned through her. Something frisky and reckless, and she quickly began to maneuver herself again, lifting forward to begin turning around instead, bringing herself face to face with the body that was wordlessly tormenting her own. In a way she was finding difficult to comprehend, something restless that had been awoken on the forest floor, and long before that, if she spared a thought for honesty. But her sweaty thoughts were clustering around Kylo’s face, her hips knocking forward to hungrily pin his down.

When again, if ever, would she find herself with the opportunity to have the Supreme Leader _pinned_ beneath her? With his hips trapped between her knees, keeping herself held close against him with her squeezing thighs, as if he were an unruly beast she intended to successfully ride. There was no coherent intent, as was the effect he usually had on her when there was no physical space between them for thought, leaving him to his self-assigned task as she slid both hands up over his chest, leaning in to feather quick, unsteady breaths against the corner of his mouth, not able to keep an impudent murmur to herself. The heat blooming over every inch from his cheeks to his ears wasn’t something she could overlook, even if it was perfectly reflected in her own face. “Don’t want to keep them waiting.”

✦✦✦

He thought he'd gone too far. When she released the controls and he felt her weight lifting, he thought she had reconsidered the benefits of crouching beneath the top-hatch and was leaving him to deal with their landing (and his erection) by himself. But she wasn't. Instead, she turned and straddled him, slotting her legs either side of his waist while he desperately fought to keep the TIE's descent towards the _Finalizer_ a steady one, and when she lowered herself back down against him, it was no longer her ass that he could feel against the pulsing line of his desire, but somewhere infinitely warmer. A low groan escaped his throat, and he couldn't quite resist the temptation to roll his hips up towards her, to feel the way she moved against him or the delicious drag of his pants against his sensitive skin.

At once, she was everywhere: her hands on his chest, ruching the quilted fabric of his tunic; her mouth fluttering against the edge of his lips, stealing his breath even as she replaced it with her own; her voice in his ears and his mind and his body, taunting him with what he wanted but couldn't have — not now, not if he wanted to save them from dying in a fiery ball of flame when he crashed the TIE into the waiting Star Destroyer.

His leather-clad fingers gripped the control paddles hard as he angled his chin upwards, peering over her shoulder at the navicomputer screen that hovered between them and the viewport. The Whisper had a whole host of safety features built in, state of the art as it was, but Kylo had never felt the need to engage any of them. Not until now. Now, as they soared ever closer to the _Finalizer_ , he couldn't help thinking that he'd need all the help he could get if he wanted to land them without mishap. With shaking fingers, he reached out and engaged every last one of them, watching as the screen flashed green in confirmation.

The gaping mouth of the Starboard Hangar loomed up ahead and Kylo drew on his very last reserves of focus to program the landing location into the ship's computer. Only once it was done and the TIE had slipped seamlessly into autopilot did he finally release the paddles, wrapping himself around Rey instead.

He felt it too: the sense that this opportunity was unique, that something was slipping through their fingers the closer they grew to the _Finalizer_. What would happen when they were aboard his flagship and it was no longer just the pair of them? How would he be able to keep them safe whilst rediscovering the man Rey had spoken to in the forest, the man she had _seen_ and _wanted_? How were they going to end this damned war so that they could just... _be_?

They were all questions he didn't have the answers to at the moment. All he had were these few remaining precious minutes, crushed together with her in his TIE, before he'd be forced to start thinking on his feet and making decisions that could change the course of everything for all of them.

His hands were on her in an instant, his gloved fingers running up either side of her back to pull her tight against him whilst his mouth urgently sought hers.

"Rey," he murmured hungrily against her lips. "I to share with me."

Immediately he groaned, realizing he'd made close to no sense at all. " _My quarters_. I want you to share my quarters with me. My _bed_." He buried his burning face in the crook of her neck for a moment and sucked in a deep breath of her before lifting his head to seek out her gaze.

"When we land, I'm going to order them to take you to my quarters. But I need you to say 'yes' first..." His eyes widened slightly, pools of longing that they were. "I need to know you want it too."

✦✦✦

Guiding the agile ship into the sheath of the _Finalizer_ was not a process to take for granted, although any landing was owed the proper attention to avoid simple but catastrophic mistakes. Any seasoned pilot knew that, and so did amateurs such as herself, and taking his ability for granted was precisely what she was doing anyway. Or maybe it was just the flippant sense that the ship could take care of itself. Surely the First Order, while implanting hyperspeed trackers into their fighters, had the sense to enable them with landing precautions to protect against unforeseen circumstances. Regardless of what the _Whisper_ was or was not endowed with, the danger couldn’t have been too great, because she wasn’t being snapped at to clear the way, and he wasn’t protesting the new arrangement with a dismissive shift of his own. Instead, she felt a groan rumbling beneath her wandering hands, and then up from his throat, her own breath catching as his hips rolled up and into the heat of her own. Almost into; there was still too much rumpled fabric in the way, and so the contact was relegated once more to a blunt friction, hard and hot, but with her legs open against his waist, she at least had the satisfaction of rolling right back against him, fingers coming up along the side of his neck as every muscle in her body tightened in anticipation of grabbing something it couldn’t reach.

The blipping tones of the ship responding to new input confirmed that maybe there were features at hand to create the illusion of a methodical landing. It was a craft that could be trusted to look after itself, for a few sweet moments of autopilot, breath coming quicker as her body recognized the implications before her head did. It meant his hands were not chained to the control paddles after all, and the heat of his gloved fingers sliding up her back melted her forward, weaseling her body in as close as the bucketed seat would allow. A fit that was at once too tight and not tight enough, and the thrumming knot in her hips was only drawn tighter as she pushed against him, having felt her body beg before, but never like this. It had begged in hunger and it had begged in thirst, and it had begged in the midnight-cold grip of solitude, but it had never begged to be undone before. Only in dreams did it fall to breathless, desperate pleading, and perhaps she was floundering in a dream now, upturned and fumbling and inexplicably wet as everything suddenly felt.

His words, when they reached her, were beaded together in such a way that she could not understand, and even when he tried again, emphasizing his meaning, they continued to float helplessly on the surface of her awareness. His face searing the curve of her neck centered her briefly, fingers plunging into the dark waves of his hair as she breathed through parted lips, heart reeling as if she’d just run a rigorous training course without pause. His _quarters_? His _bed_? Which of his loyal officers, despite their loyalty, would transport her without question to his own quarters? A cell was going to be suggested, and she brought her dusky gaze to find his eyes, perplexed and frenzied.

“They won’t take me to your quarters,” and even as she argued, she had to wonder who would rise to the occasion of defying him. Who would risk placing their opinion before his own? And whose prisoner was she – Kylo’s, or the First Order’s? She knew better than to assume there was no difference, that such a treacherous entity didn’t have more than one head, and she also didn’t particularly care, tripping into the dark pools of his eyes, knowing he already knew the answer. He had to feel it, just as he’d once felt the prick of her fear, and then her loneliness. And now her desire, wanting, with every aching beat of her pulse, to purl the two separate threads of their longing together. To have his weight heavily above her, all of their unanswered questions abandoned at the door.

“You weren’t listening,” she realized aloud, interrupting herself to find his lips, greedily slipping in her tongue to find the taste she still craved, sighing at the way it engulfed her. “ _All_ I want is you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, a massive thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [RushRush4DReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushRush4DReylo/profile) for beta reading for us! ❤️❤️❤️


	5. Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emerging from the _Whisper_ 's top-hatch was like leaving the protective swaddling of a bubble. The thundering beat of hundreds of Stormtrooper feet snapping together in salute seemed to echo around the cavernous hangar, emphasizing the emptiness of both the space and the victory. His face a mask of grim indifference, Kylo reached down into the TIE and roughly hoisted Rey up behind him, one hand grasping her arm just above the elbow. As her head rose above the rim of the hatch, the tension in the hangar palpably intensified and there was a ripple of shifting armor from below as necks craned to get a good look at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 

Kylo was reaching for her, even as she chastised him for not listening. He _had_ been listening, he just still found the kind of existential acceptance she was offering almost unbelievable. However, he felt her unspoken answer through the bond and saw it in the aching way she looked down at him. He felt it in the way her mouth plundered his, and he returned it eagerly through his complete surrender of all of himself to her. Maybe it was weakness, maybe he had just been waiting for an opportunity to surrender to the pieces of himself that felt drawn to the Light, drawn to _her_ , but now that he had, the _rightness_ of it was overwhelming. He didn't just want her in his bed — although he did want that too, desperately — he wanted her in his life, his future. He had been so ignorant when he'd told her she had no place in this story. She had a place in his. She was his beginning, his middle and his end. His story only made sense if she was in it.

Kylo felt the familiar tug in his belly of the TIE slowing down, the soft shudder as the landing gear was engaged, and reluctantly he extricated his lips from Rey's to peer over her shoulder, where his fingers were still curled, and out of the viewport. The _Finalizer_ 's Starboard Hangar dwarfed the _Whisper_ and the rows of Stormtroopers lined up below looked like toy soldiers, growing larger with every second that passed as the ship descended towards the landing deck. With a reluctant huff, Kylo returned his hands to Rey's waist and shifted her backward on his lap, lowering his feet to the cockpit floor as he did so and straightening up.

"You need to get up," he said, his voice clearly reflecting how much he wished that _wasn't_ the case. However, he had been instilled with a sense of urgency by the hundreds of eyes below which were now trained on the approaching ship from inside featureless, white helmets.

For the time being, his position as Supreme Leader of the First Order was advantageous to him — to them, as he tried to figure out what a future being all Rey wanted looked like — but Kylo knew that holding onto it would require a certain amount of acting to keep appearances up. Fortunately, he was skilled at keeping his thoughts, intents and desires to himself, at playing a part; Snoke had inadvertently trained him well in just such pursuits, and as much as it had played a hand in his downfall, it would now play a hand in Kylo's success. He just needed Rey to trust him.

"You're not going to like me for a little while," he told her, imploring her to understand his meaning. "And I need you to give into that. Show them you hate me for what I'm going to say and do, but trust that I'll come back to you. Please."

✦✦✦

Just as quickly as it began, it was over – the freedom of flight, and the freedom of being shoved unseen together in a cockpit. The eyeless sky was all at once narrowing into a hangar that was nothing but eyes: masked faces awaiting the arrival of their Supreme Leader and his captured prey, at long last. She followed his gaze over her shoulder to behold the neat array of stark white marauders. A legion that would, theoretically, obey their master’s bidding without question, and the reality of that only struck her with its full weight as her wide eyes roved nervously over their assembled heads. That anxiety soon flickered out, or at least she wanted to believe that it had, although she could still feel it humming behind her heart. There was nothing to worry about; she’d given herself up because of what she’d seen and nothing was going to stand in the way of that. Nothing could.

Sliding her own feet to the floor, she pushed herself up quickly, sheepishly, once she was commanded to do so, unsteady for a moment in the now-stationary _Whisper_. Another glance out the viewport informed her that she was not on the cusp of waking up, but rather on the precipice of another uncertain surrender. She’d been brought before Snoke and her visions had all proven to be true – up until the point that they’d come splintering apart, sheared through like the Skywalker ‘saber. An outrageous risk to have taken, considering all that could have been lost, and all that _was_ lost. It occurred to her, for the second time, that it might be a ghost of the same misjudgment now, lifting her fingers to graze over the sore edges of the burn where Kylo’s ‘saber had struck. All of the warnings had been there for her to read, and she’d still been hit. Now, however, if she disregarded what was plain before her, there was much more at stake; it was no longer an isolated duel. But what had ever been more plain before her than the rapturous glow of their light?

_Their_ light. 

Taking a step back, she brought her ruminating gaze back to Kylo, searching his face for a long, silent moment. She didn’t want to witness what the First Order had made of him any more than he might want to indulge the role his ranks expected. She also hadn’t wanted to be presented to Snoke on the _Supremacy_ , or for a fleeting moment of horror wonder if Kylo was going to betray everything she had seen, but that trust was all she had to give. It was all she’d had then and it was all she had now, swallowing the hesitation that rose in her throat.

He hadn’t been ready before, when it had seemed so undeniably clear that their divergent paths were finally meant to join as one, and she hadn’t been ready, for months after, to accept that it may have simply been a mistake of timing. Now, with the return of that same ambitious light, and the way he’d reached for her, with his hands as well as his most vulnerable longings, how could it be wrong? What other time would there be? He couldn’t tear himself free of his binds just yet, couldn’t lunge free into the light, and so she would follow him into the dark, for however long it took.

“You’ll come back to me,” she promised softly, either to herself or to him, to fortify her own faith that it was true or to assure that she wasn’t going to leave his side. Or both, regardless of what he might think he was going to do or say, or what she was going to see, gaze dropping and then climbing back up his frame. 

Stepping aside to allow him the space to lead them out, to take up the mantle as soon as there were other eyes upon him, she reached to catch his arm briefly before he would no longer belong to her, feeling the need to cauterize in advance anything she might be pressed to say.

“And I’ll come back to you. Nothing I say in front of them matters. Only what I say to you.”

✦✦✦

The loss of Rey's warmth from his lap, his body, was far more than skin deep, however, he carefully reassured himself that it was only temporary. All she wanted was him. That thought would have to sustain him until he could crush her against him again.

The _Whisper_ had brought itself to a neat stop on the landing deck of the hangar, and Kylo quickly reached out to clear his settings from the navicomputer screen before disengaging the twin ion engine. As soon as he did, he saw a flurry of flight engineers moving forward to begin servicing the ship, flanked by a handful of Stormtroopers wheeling a disembarking staircase. Swallowing past the dry lump in his throat, he rose from the pilot's seat and followed Rey back into the space beneath the top-hatch.

Her reassurance calmed something that wailed anxiously inside him, the part that was still having a hard time trusting that this was actually happening, and when she caught his arm he felt his heart skip happily at the unsolicited touch. His gaze rested on hers while she spoke, his face unmoving, then he let his chin dip once in understanding. They were strong, both of them. They could withstand whatever was going to come to pass in the next few minutes. If either of them were stung by barbed words, their promises would serve as a balm for the wounds until they could kiss each other better in person.

There was a pair of handcuffs tucked into one of the cargo pockets built into the hull of the TIE and Kylo plucked them out before turning back to Rey.

"They'll be expecting you to be wearing these," he said, holding them out to her. He knew full well that she would recognize them. They were a similar type to the ones she'd been restrained in aboard the _Supremacy_ — Force-dampening cuffs. He hated having to make her wear them — he knew he would have railed against having them anywhere near his own wrists if their roles were reversed — but there was a plan slowly formulating in his head and, for it to succeed, she needed to appear subdued but not broken. Beneath the press of his gloved thumbs, the cuffs clicked open, ready to welcome their prey.

✦✦✦

It was the same understanding, and the same promises, spoken and unspoken, and she prevented herself from thinking too closely about what had changed to make her think that the outcome wouldn’t be the same, too. She’d _felt_ it, and that would have to be enough; trust would fill in the gaps. They weren’t insignificant gaps, either. A misstep, or a word taken to heart, or a defiance gone too far could land her in a place far less secure than where she was caught right now. It could be much worse. That fuse of hope withered at the sight of the handcuffs Kylo was producing, and there was nothing that could’ve kept an insolent scowl from shading her features. But, once again, he was right; what his onlookers expected and what she would have preferred were two dangerously different things, and for all intents and purposes, she was nothing more than a fugitive that he had snared and then smartly restrained.

Letting a thin breath out through her nose, she eyed the two Force-strangling hoops, flexed her fingers in instinctive protest, and then slowly laid her wrists into their open jaws. She’d endured them once before and she could endure them again, already claustrophobic at the sensation, lifting her gaze back up in reluctant acceptance. He knew better than she did what would be permitted to pass – she’d confronted Snoke with all of her willful spirit, and together with Kylo had found a brittle victory – but this was different. Now he could not side with her before the faceless legion at his command, at least not yet, and she glanced again out the viewport, pulse scuttling uncertainly. They were harmless without a direct order from their Supreme Leader, which was a defensive fact she held onto, even while she could hold onto nothing, keeping still while her animal nature began to brace and bristle uneasily. He understood and she understood, but she could taste the pattering of her heart in her mouth.

Playing the part of resistant captive was not going to be a challenge, already having to silence the urge to thrash as the walls began to metaphorically close in. It wasn’t only a metaphor; she _was_ going to be gingerly held in the First Order’s fangs, while the only place she wanted to be roughly held was against Kylo’s massive chest. A thought she chased away as soon as it began to warm through her, focusing instead on polishing the internal wall she was going to need, and honing the invisible weapons at her disposal while she was going to be unarmed, keeping a bitter remark to herself regarding the futility of Force-suppressing cuffs when the strength of her ire might be enough to snap through anyone bold enough to test her.

✦✦✦

He could feel the prickles of her irritation through their bond as he pressed the cuffs closed around her wrists before it was unceremoniously cut off. His lips circled around an exhale, his eyes fixed on the unforgiving metal. Their bond had only been open again for... How long was it now, since she had inadvertently let down her guard on Dantooine? Hours? Cycles? An eternity? Certainly, not long enough for the wound on her shoulder to heal or the stubble on his chin to grow itchy. And yet he felt the sudden loss of it like a knife through his core. If he had needed any more motivation to make sure his plan succeeded, and succeeded quickly, it was being cut off from the dazzling brightness of Rey's Force signature. It had been like a beacon leading him out of the darkness and he needed it back without delay if he wasn't to get lost in the mire of his own black soul again.

As he drew his hands away from the cuffs, he let his thumbs brush lightly against hers, in a final, silent assurance. No one was getting lost today.

Emerging from the _Whisper_ 's top-hatch was like leaving the protective swaddling of a bubble. The thundering beat of hundreds of Stormtrooper feet snapping together in salute seemed to echo around the cavernous hangar, emphasizing the emptiness of both the space and the victory. His face a mask of grim indifference, Kylo reached down into the TIE and roughly hoisted Rey up behind him, one hand grasping her arm just above the elbow. As her head rose above the rim of the hatch, the tension in the hangar palpably intensified and there was a ripple of shifting armor from below as necks craned to get a good look at her.

The disembarkation staircase had been nestled against the curved rear of the TIE and Kylo moved forward onto it to descend, pulling Rey with him step for step. There was a welcoming party waiting for them at the bottom, as Kylo had suspected there would be; Hux stood with his hands clasped behind his back, flanked by a number of his higher-ranking officers, a sneer painted across his face.

"I see you finally caught the Jedi scum."

Kylo's jaw tightened slightly but he forced his expression to remain inscrutable.

"Did you doubt my ability, general?" he asked, poison dripping from his tone. Hux's face reddened, his beady eyes widening as he realized his misstep. It was almost possible to see the cogs turning as he reeled for a way to backtrack.

"Of course not, Supreme Leader, I just meant that—"

"Enough," Kylo cut him off, finding he wasn't in the mood to put up with Hux's drivel. In the months since Kylo's bloody ascension to the position of Supreme Leader, Hux had learned the hard way that insulting his new superior was unwise. Unfortunately, this revelation had generated a rather unpalatable side-effect; rather than the open mocking and needling Kylo had grown used to, Hux had instead resorted to sucking up, in a bid to save his neck and curry favor — something Kylo found far more distasteful than spite for its insincerity alone. In recent months, Kylo had found himself cutting the general off far more often than he listened to him, although he wasn't so short-sighted as to assume the threat Hux posed had lessened along with his snark. It was one of the reasons he kept the man close, despite the overriding disdain he held him in. If Hux was plotting and scheming, as Kylo was certain he was, he wanted it going on under his nose, so that he could better keep an eye on it. Now, with Rey on board, he knew he'd have to keep an even sharper watch than ever.

Silenced as he was, Hux stepped forward nonetheless to peer at Rey down his long nose, circling the opposite side of her to where Kylo still grasped her bicep.

"So _you're_ the reason for all this trouble," he tutted nastily, wrinkling his nose as though she was something on the sole of his shoe. "And here I thought you'd be more impressive." 

Despite himself, Kylo bristled, squaring his broad shoulders as his dark gaze zeroed in on the other man.

✦✦✦

Losing the tether of their bond, that kinetic murmur that existed around the edges of every thought, was like having a vein flayed open. Suddenly she was alone, aimless, the neat, airtight channel of their connection to each other evaporating like a breath as soon as the cuffs closed around her wrists. She wasn’t alone, of course – she was in the immediate company of not only Kylo himself, but the – how many? Hundreds? – of Stormtroopers waiting to see what he had hunted down. They were closer than they ever had been, and still the amputation of the connection instantly made her feel distant, at risk of being drained. How were they supposed to rely on the truth of their shared intentions if she could no longer feel them? Maybe the memory of feeling them was enough, a shadow made of light, the sort of false illumination created by a glint of harsh, midday sun on glaring silver metal.

Her thoughts were abruptly jarred as she was yanked up out of the hatch, gaze falling in unmasked astonishment over the attendees who stood at attention for what was apparently a much-anticipated reveal. Countless Stormtroopers, and she couldn’t help think how terrifically the odds of war would be desecrated if the Resistance had such poised numbers on their side. Trained, disciplined, numerous. She was also haunted, half a moment later, by _how_ disciplined they were, and what that meant. They weren’t assembled out of a unifying sense of right, or of defending the galaxy. They were assembled because they had been coerced, and they were nothing more than replaceable gears in the machine of the First Order. The Resistance may have been a motley pack of mongrels, but at least they had their souls. Encountering the army of Stormtroopers gave Rey the impression of facing a dead com screen. At least Finn was no longer a number among them.

Then they were on the same solid ground of the hangar as everyone else, and she stood with her shoulder stiff against Kylo’s directing grip. But there was no further progress to be made, greeted as they were by the infamous red-haired general, and his party of what she assumed were compensating officers, additional bodies to emphasize the importance of the general’s own.

The quip from one to the other, seething underling to unchallenged superior, was the discontent she had known would thrive in such a noxious environment. Where there wasn’t robotic compliance, there was bound to be this bickering, and she stole an appraising glance at the general, identifying him by his sneering aura as a snake. Coiled, lurking, cowardly, clearly distilling his courage now from the fact that her hands were bound and she had nowhere to go.

The rebels had always been scum, and it was a badge they wore with honor. Now was no different. There was no edge to the insult, and she held Hux’s imperious glare with a blaze in her own. _Impressive_? She never had been, and never would be, impressive. It wasn’t written into her stars, hailing from dust-bland Jakku, and her aptitude as a late-blooming padawan was far from extraordinary. It had sent her spiraling into several different levels of trouble, but it was all in the name of restoring balance. She was far from being the _reason_ for that trouble; she had never asked for it. Pulling against the vice on her arm to take a step closer, she strived to lend weight to her words when a ‘saber couldn’t.

“Your shining empire here is going to be ruined by filthy scum from every world you’ve tried to destroy, and then _you_ are going to be killed by the most unimpressive shade of blue you can imagine,” she vented the impulsive fantasy as quickly as it entered her head, rewarded by the general taking a stiff step back.

Only one step, and that was mainly to keep sanitary distance between himself and the rat that Ren had brought aboard the _Finalizer_ , Hux’s eyes betraying nothing but disgust, regarding the captive with a furrow wrinkled between the hook of his nose and his mouth, attention returning to the Supreme Leader.

“Let my men take her. We’ll have the Resistance’s location in a matter of minutes. She won’t be going anywhere this time.”

✦✦✦

The sight of Rey gnashing her metaphorical teeth at Hux was certainly something to behold and Kylo watched, entranced, for a moment before he surrendered to the duty commanded by the image he was trying to protect with this farce.

With a sharp tug to the arm, Kylo brought Rey back against his side and hissed menacingly, “You will hold your tongue until I have use of it.”

When the words had formed in his mind, he’d meant it as an allusion to the fact that he planned to make her talk. However, after feeling the way her tongue had been so thorough in its exploration of his mouth, his mind was immediately filled with the myriad other uses he could think of for it. At once he was glad of the shielding length of his tunic.

Focus. He had to focus.

“It was your men who failed to catch her on Dantooine,” Kylo said dangerously, rounding on Hux now. “If I hadn’t stepped in, she would have escaped _again_. No,” he concluded decisively. “She’s mine. I’ll deal with her myself.”

He lifted his head and spoke to the group of officers at large. “Have her taken to my quarters.” 

To Rey’s side, he heard Hux splutter. “But, Supreme Leader, surely a cell—“

Kylo lifted a hand and silenced the general with a tendril of the Force wrapped around his windpipe.

“She will be taken to my quarters, and by the time I’m through with her, she will be begging to tell me everything she knows.” 

He had expected this kind of challenge from Hux and, as a result, had been ready for it. Hux, the murderer and coward that he was, liked to think himself proper, far above the kind of debauchery he was no doubt picturing now that Kylo had planted those seeds in his mind. Good. It meant he wouldn’t question the arrangement too much.

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Hux choked out, clutching at his quickly reddening neck. Kylo waited a few more seconds before releasing his Force hold and letting Hux catch his breath again. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the onlookers had had the good sense to watch the exchange in near silence.

“Well,” Kylo barked after a moment of deathly quiet. “What are you waiting for? I want her taken to my quarters.”

✦✦✦

The fate of the Resistance, resting so precariously in her own head, was not something she could afford to risk. Not while there was any possibility of an enemy hand seizing that invaluable information, and she held a flaming glare on Hux’s coiffed figure, daring him to try. There was no torture that she would break under, no domination that she would submit to, no mercy that she would beg for, stumbling as she was hauled back in against Kylo’s looming body at her side.

The command hissed at the side of her head stunned her mind blank, a blink of white light that was instantly rife with unbidden memories. Lightsabers slipping to the ground, two heavy hands bringing her soundly against the burning rocket thruster of his body, her lips parting beneath his open mouth. Her tongue possessively scoring every inch of that mouth, breath panting against her skin, the fierce straining of his hips, the molten musk of his sweat, and how she’d ached, as she’d never ached for anything before, to ride him delirious across the stars.

Memories so fresh that she could still feel them, and taste them, a feral heat that strummed across every wrenchingly taut cord in her body, and she wasn’t sure if she’d at some point had a mind to speak or if her jaw had simply fallen half-open at Kylo’s audacity.

In silence she returned to coherent thought, witnessing that heated energy being leveled at Hux. There was the insensate demand that she be steered to the Supreme Leader’s quarters, and she flicked her gaze up to his face before it was snapping back down to the general, eyes widening as the more sensible suggestion was silenced, throttled by a literal force.

_Surely a cell_ — there was hardly time to envision what manner of subjugation she would be brought to in a cell as the sea-dark voice broke at her side again, painting an image that was far more treacherous than anything that might befall her under First Order surveillance. If her heart had been wheeling before, it was lurched somewhere else completely now, and heat bloomed not only across her cheeks but low in the well of her hips, fingers opening and closing fitfully in their fetters. The need to have her hands on Kylo, to tear his tunic from his body so that she could palm every muscle of his back before raking her nails up his spine was as unbearable as it was unspeakable.

It also made it impossible to stand obediently at heel, jerking herself against his hold. The quiet that settled after his demonstration rendered her own pulse the loudest thing in her head, teeth gritting as she warily regarded the three officers who promptly came forward to fetch her. Two to bodily escort her and one to see that she minded her manners along the way, she supposed, bristling as cold hands were laid on her arms, directing her forward. A new hold that she railed against, flinging her elbows in a display that was more ornery disobedience than anything else, looking back over her shoulder as she was guided away.

“It’ll take you all night. You don’t have the strength, and I’ll never let you deep enough,” not into her head and not into the uncharted map of her thoughts, nowhere deep enough to find the coordinates for the rebel base that his general and his soldiers so desperately needed, which was only half of her meaning. The only half that anyone present needed to hear, dusky eyes flashing before she turned to snarl at her chaperones.

Hux, rubbing sullenly at his crumpled throat, followed the progress of the captive before daring a glance at his commander, swallowing as he toed around the mines of what would be safe to say out loud. 

“Just remember what we _have_ here, sir,” he ventured, already half wincing. “What we finally have. We’re so close. Be done with it.”

✦✦✦

"Wait."

The three officers escorting Rey jerked to a halt, having moved less than five feet away. Kylo stalked around in front of them until he was face to face with Rey. His neck bowed forward, his eyes narrowing, until he was peering into the gold-flecked, hazel orbs he had seen so often in dreams.

"You're wrong," he said, his voice low, and all the more menacing for it. His fingers twitched at his sides, aching to touch her again, missing the warmth of her beneath his palm, even if only in the straining flex of her bicep as she resisted his control. "It'll take many, many nights." 

A delicious shiver ran up his spine, perhaps provoked by how close she was or how tempting her breath tasted on his face, and in spite of the chilling tone of the conversation that was being spoken aloud for ears other than their own, Kylo wondered whether Rey felt as hopeful that he was correct as he did. If they had all the nights between now and the end of time, he didn't think he'd tire of being near her, basking in her radiance.

He held her gaze for a moment longer before straightening up and addressing Hux over Rey's shoulder, his wide body blocking any progress her escort had hoped to be making.

_Focus._

"I know exactly what we have here." Kylo tilted his head, predatory eyes swimming across Rey from head to toe before snapping back to the red-haired general. "We have the last Jedi, the last symbol of the Resistance's hope, and I'm going to break her." He spoke slowly, enunciating every word, drawing on the darkest depths of his soul to make them believable. "I'm going to make her my pet and when I have, I'm going to show the galaxy that _no one_ can resist the First Order."

✦✦✦

Jolted to a stop just as firmly as she'd been jolted forward, she spent a moment blinking in surprise, failing to understand why Kylo would be halting his own plan. Just as soon as it was being carried out, too, and she tracked him with genuine curiosity in her wide eyes, an expression she ironed back into despising suspicion. The officers that had taken her arms began to relinquish their affirmative hold, for which she was grateful, shouldering herself loose from their grip as she held her gaze on their superior. He was looking at her the way he had in the shivering woods of Starkiller, and the way he had in the rain on Luke's island, interrupting her peace like a nightmare. Peering so closely that she could see the tiny golden moons of light in his dark irises, the eclipsing shadows that emphasized their beckoning depth. So close that, even with the bond gagged between them, she could feel him looking not through her but _into_ her, and the invasion made her blood go still.

Not an unwelcome invasion, but one she masked as such, locking her jaw against the quiver that climbed up her ribs as she defiantly held his taunting eyes, feeling the hot core of her mind pleading to open itself up to him. _Many, many nights_? A pack of wild longings broke free, steaming thoughts and images that were far from lucid, rather sheer sensation, waves of light and heat, and she wanted to pull him in to share them, to make him see in delectable detail how those many, many nights unfolded in her head, how many ways she wanted to be unfolded by his hands, and his tongue, gaze flickering in betrayal to his lips.

With a breath clipped short, she was relieved to be released from his wolfish gaze, her own falling to the floor as her heart pounded, crazed. But if crazed was the role she was expected to play, then she would do so without an ounce of effort, a shiver dancing across her collarbones as the shadow of Kylo's body fell over her, continuing to block her progress. She wasn't the last hope of the Resistance, she wasn't the last Jedi, and the rebels' spark would never sputter out. Her certainty of that flared new aggression across her face, teeth bared, pushing against the holds waiting at her arms. The dark of his eyes hunting her thin frame filled her with a simmering tension, asserting herself forward with a tone to match the menace of his own, flowering with spite.

"You'll know the war is over when the First Order falls out of the sky, burning. But I'm going to burn you first, and I'm not going to let you forget a single moment," she threatened as ferociously as if she had Resistance fighters already waiting in the wings, fingers on their triggers, but the final piece was intended for Kylo alone. "That's going to be a day the galaxy won't forget. They'll name a star after you, after how brightly I'm going to make you burn."

✦✦✦

Kylo had been prepared for Rey to put up a verbal fight. He had asked her to do just that after all, hadn't he? Therefore it was easy enough for him to keep his face an implacable mask while she berated him. However, there was a shift in Rey's tone, or perhaps her body language, which arrested his whole attention again and drew his gaze down to meet hers.

_They'll name a star after you, after how brightly I'm going to make you burn._

Kylo felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Whatever assurances they had given each other in the privacy of the _Whisper_ 's cockpit, he couldn't help feeling that _this_ was a promise, delivered directly from Rey to him — the real him, not the mask he was currently wearing for the benefit of Hux and the other officers. He couldn't help thinking that she might be right. After all, what else could happen to him — a creature of darkness who had fallen in love with one who shone brighter than sunlight itself?

Love. 

That was a concept, and it was one that had crept up on Kylo without warning. He coveted the power Rey could grant him, and she had certainly awakened a carnal desire in him, the like of which he'd never experienced in his life before. She fascinated him and, yes, she impressed him. He admired her, in his own twisted way. He felt a fierce possessiveness where she was concerned — he always had, ever since he'd found her on Takodana and perhaps even before then — and that had developed into a strange protectiveness, evident in the raising of his hackles when she had fallen under Hux's disdainful gaze. But love. Love was something entirely different. Love was pain. Love was heartbreak and disappointment. Love was weakness. Love was dangerous.

The thought had him rattled, and his lip quivered as he drew in a breath, dark eyelashes fluttering across his gaze.

"We'll see."

He lifted his chin and motioned for the officers to proceed as he stepped aside, out of their way.

"Take her. And ensure no one else enters my quarters until I return."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, a massive thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [RushRush4DReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushRush4DReylo/profile) for beta reading and cheerleading for us! ❤️❤️❤️


	6. Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sudden hiss of the door opening brought her swiveling abruptly around, heart thrown into an aggressive pounding. A panicked gaze assured her that it was the only visitor she wanted to see, which gave no more than a nanosecond of cool relief. Then the sight of his face provoked her directly into righteous fury, and once he had set foot in the room, she barreled forward to block any further progress, to prevent him from looking at anything else, from seeing past the unjust way he’d left her. The way he’d _ordered_ her to be left, lifting and shaking her shackled hands as she upbraided him, as loudly as she pleased, desperate to unleash her heat on a living body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 

It was always a matter of ‘we’ll see’ – waiting to see the next maddening way that the Force would bridge them together, waiting for the First Order to trample across the Resistance’s hideaway, waiting for the moment when she knew Kylo would turn. Ever since he’d removed his mask the first time, it had been a delicate matter of waiting. For connection, for understanding, for victory or defeat, to be proven right or wrong. And to be overcome, in the meantime, with awakenings of her own, all manner of things that could never be spoken aloud. She didn’t _want_ to speak them aloud or to concern anyone in the Resistance with what she felt. What words would there have been, anyway? And now, having put her hands against the source of that dangerous disruption, having felt it, there were even fewer words.

Now, formally dismissed, she met the return of the officers’ cold holds with a growl, resisting just long enough to make her displeasure known before allowing herself to be steered out, this time without interruption. The Star Destroyer, like every ship in the First Order’s fleet, was every inch of meticulous design that the Resistance’s scrappy fighters were not. She was led down passages that were made of panels buffed to a reflective sheen, glowpanels illuminating their progress, but it was the same empty light that had been deflected by the stormtroopers’ helmets. There was something _dead_ about it, something clinical and ominous, as if the walls themselves were watching. They probably were. As she was led across the pristine floor, she was pleased to know that the hot dust of Dantooine, which still clung to her leggings, and the humid green smears of foliage on her boots, evidence of Generis, were being left behind with each step she took, a sullied track.

Her curiosity only rose as she was brought to a stop before the door of what must be the Supreme Leader’s quarters: a curiosity that thrummed like a wire, placing before her mind images of what her somber host’s personal chambers might look like. Bare, she was sure, and minimalist, a private corner intended for troubled sleep and not much else. A place to contain all of his brooding, and as the door slid open, her wonder at glimpsing something she wasn’t supposed to see overrode her bitterness at being in custody as she arrived. Bare, yes, and just as smooth and stark as the rest of the _Finalizer_ , and she was pushed without ceremony into the room, locked in without a word from her escorts. Her first reaction, after blinking in silence at the closed door, was to protest the fact that her hands were still bound, yelping to declare the redundancy of it, the idiocy, and ultimately having to accept that the officers did not hear her, or chose not to.

Her second reaction, after a few too many minutes of feeling trapped, was to bash the cuffs against the first angled corner she could find. To no avail, but her fuming attention soon returned to her surroundings, gradually turning a slow circle. 

Eyes wandering furtively over the walls, she was struck by how unlived in the space felt, how unused, the opposite of her rough, makeshift home on Jakku. But there had been plants, although half-dead, and food, when she had it. Crafted and collected trinkets, her tally of days gone by. As she slowly began to explore the perimeter of Kylo’s quarters, she could find no such whimsy. Nothing that didn’t serve a sterilized purpose, although she felt the itch of wanting to find _something_ , like the guilty urge to rifle through a diary left lying open in front of her. She wanted her ‘saber, and she wanted her hands free in case she was faced with an unexpected visitor, but she was also distracted by the opportunity to look into the daily life of Kylo Ren. Where he slept, where he woke, wondering how anyone _could_ , already missing the chaotic play of sun and shadow on the forest floor. She alternated between bouts of impatience, rage, second-guessing anxiety, and an almost reverent curiosity, running her fingertips over the clean edges of Kylo’s quarters, leaving warm fingerprints where she did.

✦✦✦

Being separated from Rey, while he issued orders for the _Finalizer_ and its accompanying ships to rejoin the _Steadfast_ and the rest of the First Order Navy in the Inner Rim, felt like both a much-needed reprieve and a cruel blight all at once. On the one hand, the familiarity of the steps involved with moving a fleet, the sharp and efficient military precision inspired by his clipped orders, gave him room to breathe — welcome after the unsettling, emotional realization that had rocked him in the hangar bay. He was able to center himself on the bedrock of a predetermined chain of command, knowing that his wishes were being carried out without question or argument. It was a far cry from the shifting sands he always felt he was walking on with Rey.

On the other, despite the reassuring predictability of the bustle which always preceded a jump to lightspeed, it was hard for Kylo to concentrate on anything but the feverish ache that pervaded his whole body at the knowledge that Rey was as close as she was, waiting for him, _wanting him_. He wanted to go to her. He had to keep reminding himself that this time spent apart now would buy them time uninterrupted later — a few minutes now, half a standard hour at most, seemed like a fair sacrifice if it meant he could forsake the rest of the galaxy for those many, many nights he had promised Rey, and the tantalizing idea that they might be able to finally explore all the transmutations of what it was they could be to each other.

It wasn't until he was traversing the corridor that led to his quarters, feeling relatively secure in the knowledge that High Command had been briefed — there had been a short and perfunctory holoconference just before the _Finalizer_ had entered hyperspace — and that the cogs of the First Order machine would keep turning while he was otherwise occupied with 'breaking' the Jedi, that Kylo suddenly remembered the handcuffs Rey had been led away in. She had almost certainly not been relieved of them when she'd been deposited in his quarters, lest she use Jedi mind tricks to escape again, as she had on Starkiller Base. His officers all had one thing in common, after all, and that was a keen sense of self-preservation. None of the three who had escorted her out of the Starboard Hangar would have risked being the reason for Rey's escape. Which meant...

It meant that she'd been left, cuffed like a beast, alone in his quarters for more time than was strictly forgivable. The thought made the flush of anticipation drain from Kylo's face, to be replaced with something that looked suspiciously like guilt. When he had left the bridge, once the _Finalizer_ and her retinue of ships had safely been swallowed by the blue and white tunnel of hyperspace, he had been worried that his eager stride would betray the sense of longing that had been trying to tug him back to Rey from the moment they'd parted. If anyone saw him now, however, they might have suspected that he was a man on the way to his own execution. It was certainly with no small degree of trepidation that he keyed in the entrance code for the security door which separated his quarters from the public spaces of the Star Destroyer — Oh, how he wished he could sense her Force signature at that moment — and when it hissed open and he stepped inside, he realized he was holding the muscles in his torso taught, ready for whatever waited for him on the other side.

✦✦✦

Minutes? Hours? It was impossible to tell, and her sense of time passing only seemed to fray the longer she was kept waiting. Without any communication from the other side of the door – because, despite the promises that had been made and despite the Force-suppressing cuffs, she did make a meditative effort to reach out beyond the portal, to anyone who might’ve been standing guard on the other side. Anyone that she could have manipulated with a well-placed sweep of Force energy, but it was a mechanism that couldn’t be roused. Another weapon that had been taken from her, and while it made sense in the hangar bay, for the effect of displaying her subjugation, it was purposeless now. _Here_ , she was meant to be free from all confines. Here, in the Supreme Leader’s private quarters, she was meant to have more liberty than she’d ever known before. A riled, anxious energy all on its own, one that continued to lift through her, hot and hopeful. There was no way to lessen the pressure of that anticipation other than to pace, which she did, flushed with the expectant rush of Kylo’s return, and then the scorch of aggravation when it didn’t come.

What was he _doing_? Organizing his fleet, undoubtedly, and choosing a new destination for them to assemble their forces. Which was where? And how long was the First Order going to be content to sit and wait, without having any new intelligence collected from the Jedi that was supposedly going to be broken, confessing the details they needed in order to move forward and annihilate the Resistance? There was no one she could reach out to that she might ply for insight – any officers that had been nearby were satisfied, evidently, to leave her under the mechanical supervision of the handcuffs and the locked door. There was no thinking her way past it, and there was no sensing where Kylo was or dipping herself into his field of energy. There was nothing, only the roaring silence of the room and her struggling wrists, and an imperceptible amount of time passing.

The explosive energy snapping and sparking within her, with no outlet, was best exorcised in slamming the cuffs against the corner she’d first found, knowing it was useless. But so was trying to train her thoughts on what lay outside the door, or on trying to sift through the latent Force to pick up a thread she could seize and keep. There was only what was tangibly before her, and that was the kriffing handcuffs locked around her wrists. Without them, she stood a chance of finagling her way out of the room, or of at least sensing how distant Kylo was. Now, she was both blind and defenseless, having no option but to _wait_ , and while that was an ability she had honed for twenty long years, she had also always had something in her hand, something to hold onto. She had not even been granted that. He had left her completely alone.

The sudden hiss of the door opening brought her swiveling abruptly around, heart thrown into an aggressive pounding. A panicked gaze assured her that it was the only visitor she wanted to see, which gave no more than a nanosecond of cool relief. Then the sight of his face provoked her directly into righteous fury, and once he had set foot in the room, she barreled forward to block any further progress, to prevent him from looking at anything else, from seeing past the unjust way he’d left her. The way he’d _ordered_ her to be left, lifting and shaking her shackled hands as she upbraided him, as loudly as she pleased, desperate to unleash her heat on a living body.

“Did you _forget_ that I’ve had these on? The _entire_ time you’ve been gone, doing who knows what, because I can’t _feel_ anything? Maybe it slipped your mind that I’m not _actually_ a prisoner, and you don’t need to keep me bound _and_ locked up? In a room that, I might add, is nothing more than a cell – there’s nothing _in_ here, so why didn’t you just take me straight to interrogation? If your plan was to leave me in a cage, you might’ve told me that beforehand, so I could tell you exactly how _stupid_ it was. Take these off, _now_ , I can’t breathe!”

✦✦✦

Kylo grimaced as the barrage began. Rey's anger was justified, and he had resigned himself to accepting all she had to give. His eyes were downcast, contrition coloring the features he was so careful to keep unreadable in public. The truth was, he _had_ forgotten, and he felt like a prize idiot for it now. He had been so preoccupied with the idea that his actions would allow him and Rey to be alone that he had inadvertently given her a reason to deny him the very thing he'd been trying to enable.

Still, as angry as she was, as much as he understood her need to yell and rage and lash out, it was vital – now more than ever – that their ruse remain secret. There had been a rustling of discomfort from some of his more honorable officers when he'd informed High Command of his supposed plans for Rey, but he hadn't been able to sense any doubts as to the sincerity of his words, not from any quarter. As far as the leaders of the First Order military machine were aware, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren would be working night and day to break down the will of the Jedi girl in his custody, so that she could be used in turn to break the spirit of the last of the Resistance and convince the few remaining independent systems to bow to the indomitable First Order. His methods might be distasteful but, to those same officers who had advocated for the destruction of the Hosnian system, it was only results that mattered. Kylo knew that, as long as their story remained believed, he and Rey would have all the time and privacy they wanted, and that was too precious an opportunity to throw away now, even for the sake of her righteous fury.

When he'd entered his quarters, Kylo's hands had automatically come up in front of him, partly in a sign of truce and partly to lessen the likelihood that Rey would swipe his head off with her cuffed wrists, and he used them now to guide her back a pace, allowing the doors to sigh shut behind them, cutting them off from any would-be eavesdroppers.

As soon as they were alone, a tendril of dark Force energy wrapped around the cuffs Rey was brandishing at him and they immediately snapped open. They fell to the floor with an innocuous clank.

"I'm sorry." It was the first apology he'd uttered in close to half a standard decade, and it was sincere. "It wasn't my intention to make you feel trapped."

✦✦✦

‘Sorry’ meant very little – it didn’t change the fact that she _had_ been trapped, with not even her senses to rely on. No way of knowing if plans had changed, of knowing anything at all, and she reflected the same grimace as she was guided back a step. It was sensible to keep a low profile, but it would also have been sensible not to be left alone for so long, bound and cut off from any contact, and she kept her teeth gritted shut once she had vented the first plume of anger. One of many, she was sure, severing her glare to regard her wrists as they were at last released. A shaken breath followed, eyes closing as the cuffs hit the floor, and it all seemed so simple, a gesture she should have been able to accomplish on her own. Studying her hands, as if to be sure they were in fact under her own command, she let another breath out, finally finding a landmark in the blizzard of her panic.

The Force was a rhythm that returned to her blood, something she believed she could physically feel, the calibration needed to steady her frantic heart. Raw indignation wasn’t the only fuel that had spilled, however; other breeds of frustration had been bristling, waiting, half wondering if they’d been abandoned, and Kylo’s appearance set them all ablaze again. It wasn’t as simple as plain frustration – other colors of feeling streaked across her sky, and that was all she knew them as, glimmers of feeling without a name. They had been briefly pruned during her isolation, but with her hands free now, and Kylo solidly before her, they rooted deeply.

His apology, while momentarily shocking – a phrase she hadn’t ever heard him say – felt ripe with sincerity. The abashed look on his face was too bare to be faked, and despite her fury, she knew it must be true. He probably had simply forgotten, distracted by any of the other infinite claims on his attention, and she kept her lips in a grim, tight line, glancing past his arm to the door that had sealed them inside. An entirely different situation now, another enclosed cockpit instead of a lonesome coffin, and the hum of his Force signature, something she could feel again, drew her forward. She had been too long adrift without it, even if it did amount to no more than minutes.

But now she was unrestrained, she could breathe, and she brought her gaze to Kylo’s face, lingering there for a moment. One moment became two, and then three, and then she was fording the distance between them, assertive, but this time demanding only closeness. The closeness that had been lost ever since being pulled out of his _Whisper_ , but the façade could fade now.

“You came back,” she murmured, short of breath from her outburst. Who had ever come back?

And now when she launched herself at his body, it was not in wrath, but in something that was closely plaited with passion.

She could rage, but all she had wanted was for him to come back to her. To steal back into the magnetic orbit of one another they had so briefly found, the only place that had ever felt bright with balance, and so the first act of freedom her released arms indulged in was sliding around Kylo’s neck, pulling herself up against his body and looping her legs around his waist. In the desert, a valuable find needed to be acted upon quickly; it needed to be claimed, and possessively defended. Nothing was hers until she made it so, and now, maybe _now_ , there were no intrusive eyes upon them.

There were no stormtroopers waiting in the trees, there were no lost Jedi waiting to bring the walls crumbling down around them, no TIEs cutting through the sky above, and no First Order or Resistance loyalists barreling in to intervene. Maybe now, with the bond incandescent once more, neither of them would have to feel trapped. Maybe for an hour or a night, or for many, many nights, they could have this, when the door closed. The shelter of their secret, and she spared a moment for patterning her breath close against Kylo’s own, knitting his exhales into her inhales, before leaning in to capture the next breath before it could leave his mouth.

✦✦✦

The space between them felt electric, Rey's gaze magnetic, and Kylo found he couldn't look away from her when she moved closer. His hands fell automatically to her waist — and when had it become a reflex action to _touch her_? But somehow it felt as natural to him as breathing. Her ribs expanded beneath his gloved fingers with every inhale as the moments stretched, and Kylo had been half expecting her to mete out violence on him, but this was so much better.

_You came back._

So she had doubted him, despite his promise. But of course she had.

_You're so lonely. So afraid to leave._

How long had she waited on Jakku? She had been a small child in her tear-stained memories, perhaps five or six years old. Years, then, waiting for someone who never came back. Anger flared within his chest, not for himself but for her, another forsaken child. They were so alike, she and him, abandoned by the people who were supposed to protect them, forced to seek shelter in the arms of hard, unforgiving things: the corpses of starships, the embrace of the Dark Side. He understood. Oh, how he understood.

He felt her arms wrap around his neck, felt her scaling his body until her legs pressed tight on either side of his waist, and he slipped his hands beneath her thighs, clutching her to him.

"I will always come back for you," he vowed savagely into the disappearing space between their lips, craning his neck up to meet the kiss she crushed against his mouth.

He melted into her, feeling the waves of relief wash over him at the knowledge that she still wanted this, still wanted _him_. He was so ready for rejection at every turn that to find only this kind of all-consuming embrace, here in Rey's arms, would have taken his breath away if she hadn't stolen it first. His mouth was penitent on hers, trying to soothe away the sting of the last half hour with the urgent caress of his lips and the groveling sweep of his tongue. There was no one else in his world now, just her. For the first time since he'd known her, since she'd crashed into his life, it was just the two of them, with no interruptions, no masters, no orders, nothing to keep them apart any longer, and it could have been an illusion, or perhaps a projection of his own feverish heartbeat, but it felt as though the Force was _singing_.

✦✦✦

Trust and joy did not exist in abundance on Jakku. Encountering one or the other was like being struck by the sight of a nightbloomer, an unexpected dash of color in the badlands. Something to savor for as long as it could be held onto, coveted until the last drop, until the last leaf fell. It was a long wait until it was stumbled upon again, wariness and feral aggression being far more common. And far safer, and far more reliable; the creature with the toughest hide survived longest. An exoskeleton she had developed alongside every other sentient who had been cast into a life of wandering the dunes, and so joy, _this_ kind of joy, was as refreshing as rain.

He tasted like rain, a cool balm smoothing over the parched ache of her thirst. A key fitting into a lock, an answer to a question, and it was one she hadn’t realized she’d been doubting with as much dread as she had. Those shadows were scattering now, however, and as she felt the gloved weight of his hands on her waist, and then fitting beneath her thighs, another dispersing of fear lifted away from her, like the shadow of a circling steelpecker. The fear of rejection was a sting she shared, a ripple in the energy between them that she had sensed before. It was a fear that wasn’t revealed to anyone else, just as the true depth of her loneliness was best kept hidden, free to grip her only when she was alone at night. Or when she was in the company of the only person who had ever told her she _wasn’t_ alone, and she had believed it.

A part of her, despite that, waited to be scorned now – waited to be sent back to what she had always known to be true, and that was that no one ever came back, no matter what they vowed, no matter how diligently she waited, but he wasn’t shucking her from his body or trying to maintain a civil space between them. It was as if he _had_ come back, as if everything was, in fact, as he had promised it would be, and he was returning both the promise and the kiss, leaving her with only a captivated sigh.

A soft sound that was layered into the apology his lips were making, and the acceptance her own were offering, parting to meet the warm glide of his tongue. With her weight supported against him, she released her hold around his neck to slide her hands to the sides of his face, fanning her fingers to hold him there as she slipped marveling strokes over his tongue, and along the plush lips that had tormented her in the hangar, and long before that.

The thumping in the chest she had climbed up onto was washing over her own pulse, and she could feel it rocking through every vein, between every bone, clamoring for more. The Force was more than a hum now, it was a whispering, a cadence, maybe even a song, and she pulled herself in closer, thighs tightening, her blood whisked by the sensation of attentive lips lavishing her own, chasing every caress with hungry, curious flutters of her hot tongue. With great gusto had she eaten her paltry rations on Jakku, and with greater gusto had she consumed fantasies of galactic heroes and adventures to every green planet, mapped and unmapped, but never had she devoured anything with more zeal than she did Kylo’s mouth, leaving room only to breathe his name.

✦✦✦

Kylo didn't think he'd heard anything more captivating than the little noises Rey made against his mouth. Sometimes they sounded like his name, sometimes they were more like a sigh, but _always_ they sent delicious little shivers racing down his spine. He could listen to them all day if he was at leisure to, but Rey's kisses were far too insistent to allow time for idle wonder.

Her legs were so tight around him, just like they had been in the forest, and they urged him into action, like spurs to a fathier's flanks. He leaned back slightly to rest some of her weight across the spread of his hips while one hand moved to the small of her back to press her closer to him — if that was possible. Holding her firmly in place, he carefully began to walk her backward through the open-plan quarters towards his sleeping area. 

He knew the room like the back of his hand, could probably have counted the steps if he'd wanted to, but it still seemed to take an inordinately long amount of time before he felt the sharp pain of his shins colliding with the hard, black platform of his bed. He hissed into Rey's mouth, and took the opportunity to catch her lower lip between his teeth in a devilish nip that helped vent some of the sting, before lifting his knee to brace against the mattress and lower her onto her back. He quickly followed her down, barely breaking from her lips, and lapped away the little indentation that his teeth had made with the gentle caress of his tongue. 

After a moment, he lifted his head, waves of black sable falling haphazardly around his face, to peer down at her. The sight of her framed against his black sheets made his stomach squirm with pleasure and a fierce kind of pride, interlaced with both possessiveness and hope. _Stars_ , he wanted to keep her here forever.

✦✦✦

Being aware of motion was a higher function that had been sacrificed, among others, at the altar of a flooring, intoxicating kiss. Being aware of anything at all was a demand that wouldn’t have had much impact on her conscious thought, which was what made it so dangerous, and so necessary to keep out of anyone’s sight but their own. Caution was one of the first things that was tossed aside, she was discovering, when the space between their bodies disappeared, as was the ability to see past the current moment, one heartbeat at a time. So when he did begin to move, and when she felt her weight sliding against his hips, she acknowledged the shift with the beginnings of a protesting murmur. But if she’d thought he was preparing to separate himself from her, she was instead discovering that they were moving together, covering ground as one, and that she was being held fast right where she was.

A spot she had decided, upon taking it, that she would like to keep, giving her access to Kylo’s mouth while also allowing her to press the length of her torso against him. Maybe her favored way to be against him because it was the only one she knew, and it had, so far, always rewarded her with a flood of wonderfully restless heat. An energy that went into the attention she was paying his lips, mind flitting briefly over the fact that she’d had no qualms with being seated against his submissive hips, either, but that memory was interrupted by the sharp hiss of breath against her mouth. They’d also come to a stop, and the sound seemed to indicate that they’d done so more abruptly than he might’ve intended. The sting of teeth finding her lip was so unexpected, nestled as it was in the much softer caress of tongues, that she reacted immediately with a growl, although the pain was secondary to the flicker of excitement that danced inappropriately in its wake.

Then the warmth of his mouth was returning as a salve, lapping over the nick, and she was too absorbed in the delight of that sensation to understand how she had come to be on her back. But she was, bafflingly, and she turned her head the moment Kylo lifted his, reading the new situation from the new angle. They were in his sleeping area, a space she had passed through already on her own, but as with everything else, it was thrown into an entirely different light now.

The sideways view stirred her heart into something a little quicker, as did the soft rustle of sheets beneath her, even if she couldn’t quite feel them, arms wrapped back around Kylo’s neck — for balance, at some point, or maybe to keep any distance from opening between them as he lay her down. A realization that sent her gaze flickering over his face, finding his eyes almost tentatively and feeling a flush of heat in her cheeks when she did. It wasn’t a view she knew, even if his face was the same – his eyes looked different, deeper, and his hair fell in new dark swoops, and the heat radiating from his body, being held above her own, felt like it couldn’t possibly be real.

It was, because she could still feel her heart rattling unsteadily, fingers gradually dropping along his black-dressed shoulders, and she could only search his face in the absence of words, lips parted in simple shock. They hadn’t ever been _allowed_ so close before, and so she couldn’t help but wait for the illusion to begin cracking, sliding a leg to draw the weight of his lower half against her own, eventually remembering speech.

“You bit me.”

✦✦✦

One of Kylo's legs had found its way between Rey's thighs when he'd moved over her, the other — the one bearing his weight — rested to her side, knee pressed into the mattress and leather stretched tight over muscles which strained to hold him steady. However, steadiness was all but forgotten when she pulled him against her like that. Pleasure ricocheted through him at the sudden friction between leather-clad groin and strong, slim, sinewy thigh, and his eyes fluttered shut momentarily as he desperately sought to cling onto a semblance of control.

The sound of Rey's voice drew him back to her, and he blinked as he opened his eyes once more. He immediately wished he was better at reading her. Her words could have been an admonition or an invitation — he couldn't tell. He had bitten her. They had bitten each other over the months, with words and blows and painful silences, but now he knew what her soft, delicate skin felt like beneath his teeth and he found himself hoping she'd let him taste her again. He wanted to bite and suck and nuzzle and lick and kiss until her whole body was laced with traces of him, until she was marked as his as completely as he was marked as hers, albeit in a less permanent manner than the scar that bisected the right side of his face and chest.

"And I kissed it better," he murmured, lifting one hand to lightly trace the unblemished skin next to the livid burn at the base of her neck where his lightsaber had caught her earlier — a mark he hadn't meant to leave her with, and one he couldn't kiss away. It bothered him. He leaned in and let his lips brush the same spot his fingers had caressed, careful not to touch the scorched flesh itself. He couldn't heal her — it wouldn't have lasted if he'd tried — but he could perhaps do _something_...

Closing his eyes, he reached out through the Force until he found the lingering pain of her wound, red and ugly and hot. He drew it to him, feeling it sear through his veins and feed the tendrils of black, rippling power that curled hungrily inside. He siphoned, and the darkness fed until it made his body all but buzz with latent energy. Slowly, carefully, with his eyes pressed firmly shut as he focused on monopolizing her pain, his mouth moved over the burn, and he scattered a handful of delicate kisses across the cauterized flesh, more symbolic than soothing, but gentle all the same.

When what was left of her pain to draw from finally felt negligible in comparison to what had been there before, he lifted his head and relaxed his grip on the Force. The pain would return — he knew from experience — but, for now, perhaps it would do.

The hand that had rested at her shoulder while he'd been busy bent over her now trailed down to her arm, dragging his gaze with it, but the tantalizing effect of feeling his fingertips trail across her tanned, velvety skin was muted by the leather which still lay between them. Decisively, Kylo lifted his hand to his mouth and pinched the end of one finger between his teeth, tugging until his glove fell loose. Touch was something he tended to shy away from — it was too intimate, too revealing — but he found he wanted to touch Rey. He wanted to touch her in every way he could, every way she would allow.

He tossed the redundant glove to one side then returned his hand to Rey's arm, stroking lightly up and down as he explored the new sensation. His hand was clammy but it didn't lessen the sparking sensation he felt as his fingertips brushed her skin, and he marveled at how soft she felt, how the fine, tow-colored hairs stood up beneath his touch, how her muscles flexed against the brown leather cuff that circled her bicep. It concealed a scar, he knew, a scar he'd felt her receive. Of course, there was a chance she'd healed it in the time since he'd seen her last — she'd had months to figure out how and he'd observed that she was a fast learner — but something told him that she hadn't. Perhaps he just hoped she hadn't. Perhaps he hoped she'd looked at it from time to time over the months and thought about a time when they'd stood together as one.

His blunt fingertips caught at the top edge of the leather on his hand's next passage down her arm and he ran them slowly around the rim as his gaze lifted back to Rey's face. "Can I see it?"

✦✦✦

He _had_ bitten her — and the pain ebbed under his lips just as easily as it had been pricked. Not true pain, more of an electric snap, and she couldn’t deny that there was probably very little that he couldn’t kiss better. The kisses themselves had all, so far, proven that they swept her mind clean, drowned her loneliness in warmth, and opened up an entirely new world of sensation. One that her lips and tongue had exuberantly explored, and were still eager to do so, so rich and hungry was that contact. She kept a curious hazel gaze level with his face, wincing as the tender skin of her neck jumped at the touch being placed there. The edges of the burn were sore, but her shame stung more. It was a foolish mistake, and the brand was testament to how easily overwhelmed she had been by her own reckless tides. She was as responsible for falling to the blow as Kylo was for delivering it, but she had asked for a fight. It was the only communion she knew.

Stiffening her fingers against the slopes of his shoulders, she couldn’t help bracing at the brush of lips over that same skin, treading the edges of the lesion. It would heal – it would be fine; she would bear it – and so she waited for him to wander away from the lightly butchered skin. He didn’t, and she realized she was holding her breath, closing her eyes as she let it go. Not willingly, but she had no choice because she was suddenly no longer bracing, but softening under an indescribably gentle touch. His mouth was there, she could feel the imprint of kisses being sprinkled over the burn, but there was something else, too. The burn itself was quieting; the dull glow of pain pulsing through it silvered away as if it was being guided elsewhere, a river diverted, and she opened her eyes to find Kylo lifting his head. As if he had just pulled a long drink from that river that ran beneath her skin, and the shivering of the Force was enough for her to know that her pain had not simply disappeared.

Before she could question what exactly he had done with it – because it felt undeniably clear that he _had_ taken it – her eyes were slipping to the gloved hand tracing over her taut arm. The muscle beneath the leather cuffs and the linen wraps did feel taut, reacting to a touch that had no place in her frame of reference. It wasn’t aggressive, or defensive, or serving any practical purpose at all. It seemed to exist simply because Kylo wanted to touch her, and she felt her heart vanish for a moment as she watched his teeth take the finger of one glove and unsheathe his hand. In dreams she had reveled in the hot touch of his bare hands, but only in dreams; face to face, they had always seemed as much a part of him as his own skin. The forbidden touching of their fingertips had met such violent backlash that she’d assumed it would not happen again. His gloved touch had been a relief to her aching body, but the full glide of his naked fingertips against her skin had her own eyes fluttering closed, chest rising over a gasp.

Sinking into that vivid sensation would have been terribly easy, but the sound of his voice buoyed her back up, and she found his gaze with her own, feeling his waiting fingers at the cuff wrapped around her first scar. It was one she had chosen to conceal rather than erase, and as her eyes carefully climbed the jagged line of the scar she’d given him, she sat herself up on an elbow, bringing her face in.

“Let me see _you_ ,” and it wasn’t a bargain, so she didn’t wait for a reply, running a hand into the thick pelt of his hair to keep him close. The frozen lightning of the scar couldn’t have been painful, not after so long, at least not in the way of freshly broken skin. But there wasn’t only one kind of pain, and she brought her lips against the scar, let a gentle breath touch his face first, and then followed it with her mouth. Carefully, as carefully as he had moved over her, and she couldn’t fully envision what she hoped to draw out of him. Not the past physical agony of it, but what she had felt as she’d struck him down. That had to be something he’d carried with him. She’d meant for it to be, anyway, when she’d been fixed on nothing but his destruction. A cruel, despising fury, one she had wanted him to face every day as soon as he woke, and maybe there was no taking it back, but she followed the rough line with her lips in a rite that was intended to oust the spirit of what had been done. To gently undo what had been ruthlessly won, passing over the feathers of his eyelashes to reach the crest of the scar, fingers sliding deep into the dark of his hair.

✦✦✦

Kylo's fingers stilled against her leather cuff as she pushed herself up towards him, his stomach lurching at the sudden nearness. He wasn't sure he'd ever get used to his personal space being invaded like this; he was so used to people steering clear of him. Even when he'd been a child, when he'd used a different name, he'd been _other_. Quiet. Thoughtful. _Weak_ , his mind supplied, but rich with unmined power, and that had always kept people from straying too close. His mother had sensed it, Luke had sensed it, and it had scared them. They had tried to teach him to suppress it and control it, to rein in his emotions, which ran deep even then, but ultimately they had always held him at arm's length because of it.

Snoke hadn't shied away from it, nor had the Knights of Ren. They had embraced it. But it had been a cold, uncompanionable kind of embrace, distant even as it was all-encompassing, and the only caresses he had received since surrendering to the Dark Side had been the kisses of pain and punishment.

Rey, though — the way she filled his senses and forced herself past his barriers, forced him to reassess the way he felt about physical and emotional closeness, was new and exciting, and _terrifying_ as it was intoxicating. It made his heart jump wildly inside him, rising up into his throat as her lips fluttered along the line of his scar, before sinking down to the bottom of his stomach to thump hungrily at the feel of her fingers twisting in his hair.

"I thought you already did," he murmured softly, teasingly, his eyelids quivering over half-lidded eyes while he enjoyed the sensation of her mouth against his brow. He knew what she meant, and he knew what she was trying to do. She just didn't realize yet that she didn't need to. If he had once harbored resentment towards her for what she'd done to his face and, more to the point, his _ego_ , he'd let go of it a long time ago. It had paled in the light of everything she had come to mean to him. He had chased her across the galaxy for months, not for revenge but because he _needed_ her. The only wound that still pained him was the lesion she'd left in his untrained heart when she'd rejected him, and she was making up for that now just by being here.

His fingers began to move again against her armband again and he eventually found the buckle that kept it closed. Deftly, he prized it loose, letting the scrap of leather fall away, then ran the pad of his thumb over the two small, raised patterns that reached for each other across her skin. He didn't linger there, however, reaching instead to run his hand along the line her belt drew at her waist. His fingers had developed a taste for undoing her buckles, it seemed, as he made quick work of each one he found, following the leather downwards until he reached the holster strap that circled her thigh.

He paused. This was as far as his hands had been allowed to roam earlier, before she'd turned his lightsaber on him. Now, he reached back to unclip both 'sabers from his belt and lay them on the bed — an offering, a surrender, a way to make him stop if she wanted him to — before loosening that last, lone buckle and reeling in the leather straps from beneath her, until he could toss them aside to land redundantly beside his glove and her arm cuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for beta reading for us! ❤️❤️❤️


	7. Taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can I…" he began, his hand involuntarily jerking upwards as the commands, _more, closer_ and _see_ were joined by the compulsion to _touch_. He could, he decided, touch her. Her fingers may be tight on his shoulders, her breath might be making her chest quaver shallowly as he blinked down at her, but she was still here, still seated firmly in his lap, still riding the hardness she'd undoubtedly felt within his pants. Touching was the whole point, wasn't it? Touching and being touched. There were other things he wanted to explore with her later, less physical things, more ephemeral, more _powerful_ , but for now, there wasn't anything he wanted more than to close his hands over those perfect little breasts. So he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 

If Rey had _seen_ him before, it had been the broken, flickering light through slats and cracks. She knew what she felt, and what she believed she’d seen, and what she knew she would find if she continued to look. But that wasn’t the same as seeing, a breath apart and without interruption, and she eased back an inch once she had tasted the length of his scar, glancing down as her arm was stripped of its leather cuff, her own scar exposed. The same two hands reaching across a distance they would never close, a moment suspended that they themselves had enacted shortly after she’d sustained the wound. That permanent symbol could have been the final page of their story, and she had covered the scar and put up a wall to make herself forget it.

But she hadn’t forgotten, and his fingers began to stray, and then the belt at her waist was coming loose, one buckle at a time. Her torso tensed beneath it, breath going shallow in her chest as she watched him uncinch the leather, and she only looked away at the quiet unclipping of his ‘saber along with her own, gaze flicking over the silver hilt and then the black, and for as fiercely as she’d wished to have the Skywalker blade back in her hand ever since it had first been confiscated, she felt nothing but a soft pounding behind her ribs at the sight of the two being set aside together. They joined the arm cuff, and the shed glove, and then the holster strap that he had unwound, and her own hands skimmed down the covered chest in front of her, returning to the flat belt at his middle.

“I’ve already seen the stars, does that mean I should stop looking at them?” she countered belatedly, not at all convinced that she had seen all there was to see, not of the stars and not of Kylo, unclipping the fastenings that her fingers had jumped over earlier. A primal fear had seized her before she could make it any further, in the forest, but that wariness was absent now. Now they were alone, and he had come back to her, and she needed to be closer. Where he had paused she fumbled forward, quickly separating the belt and dropping it aside, among their accumulating trimmings. He was still wearing one glove, and before his hands could venture further, she caught his covered hand in her own and slowly pared the leather from his skin, flush against the contours of his fingers as she freed them.

Her attention then fell hungrily upon his pleated tunic, under which she slid her searching hands, mind tripping over the scattered images of his tremendous chest manifesting before her. It had startled her once before and she was startled once again at the prospect of being so close to him now, with that span of muscle not only nearly within sight, but nearly within range of her fingers.

If there was a systematic way of undressing him, she failed to follow it, driven instead to feel all that she could, as quickly as she could. That meant reaching for his torso, unable to fathom how bare skin would feel against her anxious palms, and she wanted to drag that same touch up his sides, and across his back, and she wanted her fingers tangled in his hair at the same time, and his in hers. The heat of those tumbled longings was like an itch under her skin, and she lifted her hips without thought, finding a stripe of friction to slide against the firm line of his thigh. Pleasure burned fleetingly bright, a rising glow, and before it could fade, thighs tightening, she repeated the motion, breath coming quicker as she fought the black tunic off his body.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo's breath hitched in his throat when he felt Rey's hands divesting him of his belt and remaining glove, then slipping beneath his tunic. Logically, he knew it was the next step. She had been scrabbling at his belt fastenings in the forest, before she'd called a halt to proceedings, and surely that could only have been in an effort to get to what was beneath, but the heat that radiated from her searching palms, as they intruded beneath the thick, quilted fabric, caught him entirely by surprise. When she added to the sensation by bucking her hips up to grind herself against his thigh, he was sure he stopped breathing altogether. All his attention focused instead on the _heat_ that emanated from her where her leggings slid against his leather pants. For a moment, he was rendered helpless as white-hot excitement lanced through him, and he found that his own hips weighed down on her, moving independently of his brain and crushing her into the mattress, as he sought more of that delicious, heady friction.

It wasn't until she started trying to wrestle him out of the tunic that sense kicked back in. He gulped down a breath and reared back to kneel as he helped her rip the tunic from his shoulders. Beneath, he wore a soft, plain undershirt — standard-issue, black — and he quickly caught the hem of it in his hands and pulled it up and off over his head, leaving his torso bare and his chest heaving beneath her gaze.

She had seen him in such a state of undress before, when the Force had deemed it prudent to connect them whilst he'd been dressing. She had been flustered by the sight of him then — asked him if he had a cowl he could cover himself with — but despite having an undershirt to hand, he had forsaken it in favor of exploring the thick tension that hung between them. Perhaps that had been a cheap move, relying on the fact that she couldn't see his surroundings and hadn't been able to see the shirt lying inches away from his hand on his 'fresher's countertop, but it had given him some degree of satisfaction to watch the way her eyes had skittered over his bare skin as she'd tried not to shrink from him. He didn't train his body for aesthetics, he trained for power and strength, endurance, and agility, but on that occasion, for perhaps the first time in his life, he'd felt arrogantly smug about how he looked.

Now, however, he just felt apprehensive. It was stupid, to feel so vulnerable and exposed in front of the woman who had been quite literally _fighting_ against clasps and quilted fabric to get to his skin, but he did. It was only when he tried to take a steadying breath, brushing the untidy waves of silken black hair out of his eyes, that he realized the fluttering sensation keeping his stomach afloat was waiting on Rey's reaction before it would settle.

Tentatively, he peered down at her, letting his hands fall back down to rest against her, wanting to bridge the connection he'd left when he'd pulled back to disrobe. His tongue flashed uncertainly over his kiss-stung lips as his fingertips trailed around the curve of her ribcage, over the wide, horizontal strip of linen that circled her waist and held the longer pieces in place where they crossed over her chest.

"Your turn," he breathed, one finger sliding beneath the material and tugging gently.

✦ ✦ ✦

It was too quick, like sneaking a glimpse of something she wasn’t supposed to see – the brunt of his weight pinning her hips down, _crushing_ her hips down, a vigorous answer to whatever plea the pulsing point within her was making, and finally having that pressure shoved against her lifted a lilting sound from her thumping chest. Then he was sitting up, and her eyes opened to follow the removal of the thick tunic, and the softer shirt beneath, and then there was the nothing but the heaving buff of skin—

It wasn’t– he was just– everything was so _big_ , he was gigantic. He eclipsed her entire field of vision like daybreak, a flood of light and heat and color, and she wondered helplessly if she shouldn’t have moved more slowly, if she shouldn’t have allowed herself several long moments of warning. For all the good it would have done, because just as she’d turned to unwittingly behold him half-dressed on Ahch-To, she felt staggered by the vision now. It was no longer merely a _vision_ — she could feel the warmth radiating from his skin without touching it, the hot casing of a still-smoking fighter. She’d just had her hands on him, but now, seeing what she had been touching, it seemed logical that if she pressed her fingers to him, he would burn like glinting metal. He looked as ruggedly-built as starship durasteel.

The weight of his presence was arresting when he was clad in unbroken black. His looming stature lent him a natural authority, an effect she had seen in the shrinking postures of those he confronted, and his low, reverberating tone suggested the potential for explosive violence. He was a commanding figure, an illusory specter, a menace who might not have been filled with red blood at all. The sight of his skin, then, pale human skin, with hot, red blood burning underneath, had made her avert her gaze the first time. It made her avert it now, too, heart flipping in her chest as perennial heat bloomed in her cheeks, fingertips skimming dumbfounded over the divot in the center of his torso where muscle met muscle. She’d seen hale animals with bodies primed for fight and flight, for strenuous survival, for lunging and wrestling and crushing and dominating, and a hopeless sigh served where words couldn’t. It was, as it had been the first time, unfair. There were no synapses in her brain that could withstand the abrupt short-circuiting brought on by the sight of his bare chest.

As her eyes climbed slowly back up to his face, she couldn’t stop the quirk that flitted across her brow. He looked – shy? Bashful? Why, she couldn’t imagine, considering the inarguable fact of how he was built, and she studied that unexpected expression, feeling the nervous breath he tried to steady as it hitched through his body, and a smile played at the corners of her lips. His hands were returning to her, and she could feel the suggestion of his fingers at the linen securing the other wraps in place. Maybe it was her turn, but she ignored the cue and instead took advantage of his reared-back pose, with his weight already lifted away from her, preying on the uncertainty that had kept him there. Bringing her hands to his shoulders, she pushed herself forward, aiming to roll him onto his back before he could suspect what she was doing. Nimble speed was handy, and the excitement of being _almost_ up against everything she wanted kept her spry. The insistent, heavy throbbing that had gathered low in her hips was, still, demanding those tantalizing strokes of friction, and after what she’d stumbled upon in the cockpit of his TIE, she knew she could line herself up even more fully against that pressure with a thigh on either side of his hips.

And now, blessedly, with his undressed torso before her, sweeping her gaze appreciatively over the breadth of him, and then her hands, smoothing down the hills and furrows of his abdomen, perching herself on the throne of his hips, and only then returning to the words he’d said.

“I don’t think your turn is over quite yet.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Maker, couldn't she do... _something?_ Anything except just lay there looking dumbfounded and casually sending electric shocks through his body with each uncoordinated brush of her fingertips down the center of his stomach. Kylo could feel his shoulders hunching in on themselves in a practiced attempt at making himself smaller, and he was on the verge of curling himself over her and burying his anxiousness in the space behind her ear when her gaze caught his and she— She _smiled_. At him.

Something roared triumphantly inside his chest and he was busy basking in the satisfaction of an ego inflated when he felt her hands spring to his shoulders and shove. He toppled, and his hands closed automatically around Rey's small waist as he did so, hauling her with him into a roll as fluid and graceful as any Ataru move. Not that she'd needed his help. From the way she immediately had him pinned, it was clear that having him trapped beneath her again — at her mercy, just as he'd been in the cramped pilot's chair of his TIE — had been forefront in her mind when her hands had closed over his shoulders. The realization calmed the part of him that had been shamefully quick to assume that she was pushing him away again, cowed by how he'd charged ahead rather than letting her take her time. It wasn't that he'd wanted to push her. Patience just wasn't his strong suit, especially not when all his desires seemed to be so nearly within his grasp and the Dark Side of the Force pulsed through his body. From the look on her face, though, and the insistent press of her hips, she'd had enough of waiting too.

His head fell back against the black bedclothes as a moan escaped his lips. There was absolutely no disguising the rock-hard length of him, which strained against the leather at his groin, just as there hadn't been in the _Whisper_. Once again he found himself remembering — far too late — that he should have been trying to maintain at least some kind of upper hand in this new and untested form of combat. Still, it was impossible to feel too disadvantaged when her gaze, which she had initially averted, was now roaming ravenously across his chest, followed closely by her small, hot hands.

However, Kylo wasn't content to lie meekly beneath her. Without warning, he surged upwards to sit, keeping her astride his lap, his arms sliding up the sides of her ribcage to hold her close. 

"The rest of my turn can wait—" His lips dipped to press a hungry kiss against her collarbone, which peeked out from the little ‘v’ at the neck of her tunic. "—until _I_ can see _you_." His hands slid around behind her, fingers being swallowed beneath the layers of linen at her back as he started to pull them loose. He had no idea how to get them off of her — he could be tying her in knots for all he knew — but he was desperate to see more of her beautiful, golden skin than just the glimpses her modest, desert garb afforded.

✦ ✦ ✦

She had, during the various occasions when the Force had seen fit to shake them together, been close enough to hear an assortment of strange new sounds. Sounds that came from somewhere within the cavernous chest she had pinned beneath her, and in her head, unbeknownst to her until this precise moment, was a neat catalog of each of those times. Moments when she’d heard him howl — _traitor_ — and snarl when they crossed blades in combat. An otherworldly grunt when he’d pounded his own fist against his bleeding wound. A hiss of agitated breath though his gritted teeth when she’d leveraged her ‘saber against his own — _you need a teacher_ — and the curt snare of his arrogance – _we’re not done yet_.

A sharp breath caught when she’d fired her blaster at him. An infuriating murmur — _ah, you do_ — and a pant against the underside of her jaw in the forest. The quiet of their breaths taken on Luke’s island — _you’re not alone_ — and a throttled groan, when she’d plied herself off his lap in the _Whisper_ just to turn and seat herself roughly against him. The sun-fierce growl of a promise — _I will always come back for you_ — and the wordless sounds of their recent wonder. But she wasn’t sure she had ever heard him moan.

Not like that, not a sound of uncomplicated pleasure, and it did something to her — it felt like a heavy fist was clenching somewhere between the small of her back and her hips, and she rose to slide herself closer, crowding against that exasperating, hard ridge that she still couldn’t get to, hands beginning to fall impatiently to the hem of the leather pants that were endlessly in the way. As they would continue to be for a moment longer, catching her own breath as his weight shifted beneath her, resulting in him reappearing in front of her. She’d taken for granted that he would yield without a fight – he’d had no choice in the TIE’s cockpit, after all – and she stilled her hands where they had slipped toward his groin, with half a thought to push him back down. It was much easier to claim him with her famished stare if he was lying compliantly beneath her.

But she was also discovering just how close they could be in this new arrangement, her thighs eagerly gripping either side of his hips as she shifted to jostle herself against the hard length in his lap, ardently seeking the friction they’d danced around. There was also the warm hassling of his hands at her sides, and at her back, and the hassle of his words defying her, not having completely rid herself of the frisky smile that had been hinting at her lips. The scrape of a kiss against her collarbone, which spilled a flurry of sparks over flushed skin, caused her to squirm where she knelt, shimmying against his lap while feeling his fingers working blindly at her back. With no sense of direction, it seemed, although she couldn’t blame him — it was an awfully long arrangement of worn wraps — but she also didn’t offer any assistance, instead sliding a hand up the steep cliff of his back, palming, at last, the granite swells he was made of. Knotting her fingers into the curls at the nape of his neck, she turned her head to breathe playful encouragement directly into his ear.

“If you knew anything about the Niima knot, you’d already have these all undone.”

✦ ✦ ✦

The sound of that breathy taunt whispered so prettily into his ear was like a spark to the dark fire in Kylo's veins. He felt it ignite, setting him aflame and driving his hands to work even more furiously in their attempt to pull her free of the wraps. Rey's fingers were curled tightly into the hair at the base of his skull and there was a sharp stab of pain there, which he ignored, as he jerked his head forward to tear frustratedly at the linen at her shoulder with his teeth, like an animal, a predatory growl reverberating up from somewhere deep inside his chest.

His movements were more brute strength than grace, tinged with the unspoken but palpable urge to be _closer_ , although his efforts were hampered considerably by the way he pulled her down against the bulge in his pants, a slave to his need to feel her. Eventually, though, his persistence paid off and he felt the linen come loose in his hands. He leaned back a little, the muscles in his stomach held tight, as he put some space between their bodies and reeled the pale length of material in, round and round his hands, until the last of it slipped away from around her. He dropped it aside and it slithered off the end of the bed to land on his polished, black floor in a puddle of white.

Kylo didn't notice. He was already preoccupied with Rey's simple, white tunic, singed and stained as it was from their fight in the forest and her expedition to Dantooine before that. He had seen her in just a tunic and leggings before and he remembered the way the flimsy fabric had clung to her then, wet and almost translucent from her submersion in the pool of the Dark Side cave she'd strayed into, before she'd wrapped her blanket tighter around her shoulders and confessed her loneliness to him. She’d trusted him, when no one else in the galaxy could have. He wasn't sure he'd ever find out why exactly — he wasn't convinced she knew herself — but it had touched something deep and hidden inside of him which, since then, had been clamoring to be released. Now, with Rey in his lap and his fingers ruching the thin fabric up over the swell of her ribcage, he gave himself over to it, letting it guide him as he did want he _wanted_ , what felt right, as he had that night, rather than what a sense of duty commanded.

His mouth was dry, his heart hammering at the back of his throat, as he slipped his fingers beneath her tunic and felt her warm, smooth skin bloom beneath his clammy palms. She felt firm and lean and smooth and soft all at once, like perfectly, sun-ripened shuura fruit, and Kylo felt a curl of pure desire twist low in his stomach as he found himself wondering whether she would taste as sweet. His breath left him in a shaky exhale as his fingertips moved over her, learning the curves and valleys of her lower back, tracing the hard stripes of her ribs at her sides, letting his thumbs meet at her front in the shallow dip between her abdominal muscles, and _stars_ , he could almost enclose her whole waist inside the circle made by his two hands.

His gaze flickered back and forth between her face and the band of creamy skin he'd exposed at her midriff, seeking reassurance as he slid his hands higher and higher beneath her tunic, revealing more and more of her, until—

"Lift your arms," he breathed.

✦ ✦ ✦

There was no intricate system of Jakku-specific knots, really, so much as there were what felt like yards of winding linen, but the taunt did have the effect of provoking the hands at her back to work faster. It also had the effect, she soon felt, of inspiring Kylo to use not only his clawing fingers but his teeth, and she fluttered her eyes shut with a sharp breath in, squeezing her fingers into the handful of hair she was holding onto. That lupine growl that rumbled up from his chest resonated through her own body, something akin to a planetary shift that would have knocked her off balance had she been standing. Something she felt through blood and bone, and over the hot surface of her skin, catching a breath against the lobe of his ear as she was pulled to fit hard against his lap.

But he had managed to unfurl the folds of linen from around her waist and off of her shoulders, and she spent a half a moment watching as it unspooled off the bed and onto the floor, a splash of white in a sea of black. There was more to send after it, the tunic he was roaming his fingers over, and a slip of cool air found the skin that had been inadvertently revealed, a chill that hurried up her spine. The fabric was thin enough that she could feel his heavy palms through it, the weight of hands almost against her skin, and then she could feel the tips of his fingers against her, with nothing in between. Just a brush of skin to skin, and the energy that it sent pulsing through the Force left her a step behind, once more, in keeping up with her own breath, heart thumping as she grazed her hands down over the range of his shoulders.

It was easy to believe that this was it, and then that _this_ was it, the moment of baffling closeness that had to be the apex, the final height of whatever _it_ was. The limit of how near two bodies could be, the nebula of wild heat that supposedly existed once that point was reached. She could believe she’d found it – the pounding in her hips as she sat in his lap, thighs still squeezing her as close as she could be, longing to be pressed even closer against the hard length there. That unfed sensation was paired with the odd way she wanted to place herself in his hands, feeling now how wholly they held her. He could capture her entire ribcage in his palms. Those hands could probably span the length of her back, from top to bottom, and curl around both shoulder blades. His fingers could practically meet around her waist, and she glanced down as his thumbs closed that warm circle, curling her own fingers as a wave of incoherent longing broke over her.

Maybe _that_ was the star-shattering secret of being so close, discovering exactly where you fit, but each time she decided that the heat of her skin couldn’t demand any more ferociously to be close, there was some glide of his fingers that convinced her otherwise. There was another corner of the map to unfold, and anticipation pattered against her ribs as he helped her tunic to ride up over them, feeling her breath go shallow under the realization that there was little left beneath it. Only the bindings around her chest, and she flicked her gaze back up to intercept Kylo’s as it searched back and forth, keeping her fingers tight against his shoulders.

It was only skin, as her mind strived to remind her, skin that had seen years of sun and dirt and little else; it was her own, untouched except for when she clambered over fighter hulls or dunes of sand or wrapped herself in stained linen. Unseen by any eyes but her own, and unexplored by any hands but her own, and no one had ever looked at her the way Kylo was looking at her, like he wanted to _see_ her. Like he wanted to know her skin, the way some people wanted to know the sky, and she hadn’t ever _wanted_ anyone to. It hadn’t ever been more than a freckled vessel, her slim, dependable transport across the sand, over and over, but she felt it aching to be something more, and so she lifted her arms and carefully ducked her head, back curving to slide herself free.

✦ ✦ ✦

It was only skin, he tried to tell himself. It wasn't anything remarkable. Except _hers_ was. It looked almost opalescent under the cold light of the glowpanels which illuminated his quarters. His dark gaze roamed over her body, his eyes exploring all the places his fingers had before them, his fingers greedily taking more. The waistband of her leggings ended just beneath her navel and his fingertips smoothed over the taut skin there before traveling upwards, following the ridges of her abs to where her chest was bisected by more wrappings. He passed lightly over them, his mouth quivering slightly as he marveled at the swell of her breasts beneath the fabric, then let his hands curl around the balls of her shoulders, feeling her muscles ripple beneath his touch, before they began their journey down her back.

It was there that he found the little knot which, he realized when he tugged at it, was where the loose end of her breast band was tucked in on itself to stop the material unraveling. Without pausing to second guess himself, he teased it into his hand and began uncurling it from around her. _More._ His movements were slow at first, experimental, feeling his way around her body as he nuzzled his mouth against the slope of her wound-free shoulder, but they grew steadily faster and faster as his confidence surged. She tasted like sunlight on his tongue. _Closer._

When his anticipation had mounted to such a level that he was seriously considering just bending over her and using his teeth on these wraps too, he _finally_ felt the last of the material slithering away from her skin. He cast it aside, then let his palms reverently slide flat against the broadness of her back. A little sigh escaped him and he lifted his chin to peek up at her as he pulled her bare torso flush to his chest, feeling the way her small, perfect breasts were crushed against him. But he wanted to _see_ them. He stole a quick kiss — chaste by the standards of their earlier exchanges — then curled his back to put space between them again. His eyes slid down her front to the two delicate mounds at her chest, with their dusky pink areolas and peaked nipples.

His mouth had been dry once. It wasn't anymore. The sight of her bare breasts made his mouth positively water, and his tongue flickered across his lower lip as he stared, quite unable to do anything else.

"Can I…" he began, his hand involuntarily jerking upwards as the commands, _more, closer_ and _see_ were joined by the compulsion to _touch_. He could, he decided, touch her. Her fingers may be tight on his shoulders, her breath might be making her chest quaver shallowly as he blinked down at her, but she was still here, still seated firmly in his lap, still riding the hardness she'd undoubtedly felt within his pants. Touching was the whole point, wasn't it? Touching and being touched. There were other things he wanted to explore with her later, less physical things, more ephemeral, more _powerful_ , but for now, there wasn't anything he wanted more than to close his hands over those perfect little breasts. So he did. First, the right, covering the entire swell with his palm, then the left, letting the pads of his fingers and thumb brush her nipple before curving over the rest of her and squeezing lightly.

" _Kriff_ , Rey, you're—" He didn't know what she was. Incredible, yes. Too good to be letting him paw at her with his bloodstained hands, certainly. She was everything he'd ever dreamed she would be and so, so much _more_. He shut his mouth and shook his head instead of trying to finish his sentence, then leaned in to let his lips trail over her collarbones as his fingers fell into a sporadic pattern of kneading and tweaking and caressing and pinching and soothing.

✦ ✦ ✦

For as gigantic as his hands were, for as much space as they could cover in a single sweep, she found herself keenly aware of every inch that his fingertips touched. For as heavy as they should’ve been, the touches grazing her skin were light, smooth, and almost fluid in how they enveloped her. Her mind skipped again to rain – how it had felt to be coated in prickling sensation, the warmth of her skin and the cool of that sliding, seeking touch that was the rain. It had melded to her, over her, gliding along every curve as if it intended to trace every single contour her body was made of. Gently but thoroughly, and she read that same intent energy in every supple pass of his hand over every part of her – her navel, her shoulders, her back, all of them braced, and then slowly melting under his fingertips.

He found the knot in the center of her back, and her shoulder blades pinched together reflexively, like unsettled wings folding. This band was one that no one had occasion to see, only her practiced hands as she wound it into place in the mornings, and unwound it when she slept. Now thicker fingers were unraveling it for her, and she kept her own caught against the working muscles of his biceps, feeling the flex and stretch as he unwrapped her slowly, and then quickly, and the humid heat of his mouth against her shoulder made her tremble, an anxious shower of sparks that reached all the way down to her toes, curling them within her boots and stirring where she sat on his lap. Every shift there, intentional or not, earned a delicious pang of friction, and she rode it as closely as she could until her attention was inevitably lured elsewhere. Now it was the breast band falling away from the skin it had always protected.

She found his eyes again, her own wide, and not without a gleam of uncertainty, thinking inanely, as she was pulled into the wall of heat that was his chest, that she was… small. Almost flat, with the bindings tightly in place, and it had rarely crossed her mind before. Lean and mobile was what she’d always needed to be, light and unobstructed, agile, her body trimmed down to the bare essentials of locomotion. What was beauty, or catching anyone’s eye, or worrying about a stranger’s gaze resting on her for longer than an appraising moment? Never; she stuttered a nervous breath against the kiss that nudged her lips, heart pacing anxiously as the heat of his eyes, a heat as real as his exploring hands, made it difficult to breathe. Due in no small part to the fact that the very act of breathing required her chest to rise and fall, bare and irreversible.

Climbing up his body when he’d returned had been a rough line of contact between his chest and her own that quickly resulted in excitement sparkling across her skin, and it was an excitement that tended to tighten at the humble peaks of her breasts. A fact that, up until now, had been hidden beneath the bindings, and the tunic, and the overlaying, crisscrossed wraps. Now there was no shielding it, or the flush that continued to wander aimlessly over her, from cheeks to collarbones, down to what suddenly seemed so, she frowned to think it, _unimpressive_ , but the lurkers at Niima Outpost had always leered after female sentients who were plainly curvaceous, hadn’t they? It was what men crowded to watch on holocasters, it was what was so obviously, universally _wanted_ , and while she had never cared what fancies anyone else took to, she had also never been sitting with her heart wailing inside her chest, wondering if what she was, beneath all the dirty wraps, what Kylo wanted. If it was what he looked for on _his_ holocaster, if it was what he craved in the day so hungrily that it painted his dreams at night. She couldn’t imagine it was – there were others who were, in terms of startling physicality, so much more than she was. But he was asking her half a question, and his hand was jumping, and she could only answer with a lush sigh.

“I’m small,” she supplied, regrettably, but then they fit, somehow – the bowl of his palms and the small, perked swell of her breast, one and then the other – and the _heat_ of his hand, the ridged texture of the pad of his thumb, against skin that was touched by nothing but linen, left her leaning into that touch with a soft moan. The pressure of his gripping fingers spurred her own to dig tighter at his shoulders, sliding back up toward his neck and returning to his hair, and how was it possible that bare hands on bare skin could be as enjoyable as – what? She didn’t know. Moments of her sheerest pleasure had been, mainly, eating. Exploring, discovering new shades of green, but there had been no moments like this, reveling in how her own skin could be brought alive. By two simple hands, and she didn’t know why the cupping and the stroking and the kneading of two irrelevant mounds of flesh was so ecstatic, but she was slowly taking two more fistfuls of black hair. For the purpose, she had no choice but to admit, of guiding the kisses at her collarbones lower, sliding up closer and needing the plush heat of his mouth on the same skin that his hands were working into a tingling frenzy, murmuring breathily.

“Will you?”

✦ ✦ ✦

"Mmhmm," Kylo murmured his enthusiastic assent against Rey's warm, radiant skin as she guided him downwards, letting himself be willingly led. Frankly, he found it almost laughable that she'd felt the need to ask. One brush against his consciousness and she would have been able to _feel_ how eager he was to comply, how his tongue had been aching to taste her since the moment his eyes had alighted on those two rosy peaks that his thumbs were busy circling.

Even seated, he was tall — too tall, he'd always thought as a teenager who stood almost a foot taller than his fellow padawans, his too-large ears only just concealed beneath his not-quite-long-enough hair — and he was already having to hunch his shoulders over to kiss the crest of her sternum, his lips still a long way north of their destination. While he would have happily bent himself in half had she asked him to, instead, he sacrificed his hold on her left breast and wrapped his arm behind her. He couldn't count the number of sacrifices he'd had to make in his life in search of something greater, in search of his purpose, free of the legacy that had been imposed upon him by birth rather than choice. With Rey's slender body arced over his forearm, her breasts forced up against his waiting lips, he thought he might finally have found that purpose. At the very least, _this_ sacrifice had been worthwhile. His palm's bitter loss had been his mouth's sweet, sweet gain, and he mumbled incoherent noises of worship against her skin as he let his lips close around her nipple.

She said she was 'small'. He said she was just right, or he would have done if he could have strung a coherent sentence together at that moment. The truth was, she'd robbed him of that ability with her effortless magnificence. The more he explored her — his tongue lapping and swirling and flattening against the enticing, little nub — the less he wanted to speak ever again, content instead to put his mouth to this far more worthy use until the end of his days. The way her skin puckered beneath his ministrations, the peak sharpening even more until it felt swollen and stiff against his tongue, drove him wild. He sucked, feeling the way her flesh was engulfed by his mouth, and released her with a lewd pop before nuzzling his nose against her and shuddering when he smelled himself on her skin.

His hand fell away from her right breast and moved to meet his arm behind her back, leaving the unkissed side of her chest free to receive his eagerly wandering lips. Oh, he was so glad she had stopped him in the forest clearing, where there had been no possibility of exploring her body the way he was now. Now he knew what her breasts tasted like, how ripe they looked when the light kissed them, and the tantalizing way they reacted to his touch, he pitied the man he'd been before. That man hadn't known real pleasure, only the ghost of it left by dreams that had been as much torture as delight.

✦ ✦ ✦

The logistics of their difference in size, in height alone, was not a shadow cast very far along the reaches of her thoughts. It hardly seemed like it should matter at all, when weighed against the intensity of how very much she needed to feel him against her, and so she wasn’t surprised when he found a way to honor the request without question. He was simply acquiescing, willingly, and she let her weight yield back against his forearm, trusting it as she would trust any piece of hardy steel to hold her. It did, and the fingers carding through his hair squeezed tight at the brush of lips against the humming bone of her sternum. And then that brush was moving lower, over skin that was achingly expectant, but there was no anticipating how it would feel to have his lips close around her anxiously peaked nub. A soft, wet heat that had the disproportionate effect of stupefying her entire body, everything tightening and then melting, lips parting around a breathless, languid ‘oh’.

His mumbled voice vibrating over the newly-slick skin deepened the pulsing that was already rampant through her body, and soon she was squirming, the flat of his broad tongue suppressing her small, singing nipple, and then swirling and teasing it stiff again – it was unbearable. Delight never lasted so long, no more than a few bites or few scant glimpses, or radiated so deeply, and for a split second, she wanted to be wholly devoured in exactly this way. She wanted him to take her one mouthful at a time, to be burned by every swipe of his tongue, to feel the faint edge of his teeth, and to give him every inch of her waiting skin.

Her brief agonization over what might or might not fit his fantasies faded beneath the fervor of his devotion. It _felt_ like devotion – the way his tongue lavished her, the way he seated himself to attentively fulfill her mindless request, more thoroughly than she’d thought possible. It was only skin; how, then, did he manage to make it feel like the surface of a star? Glowing, living, burning, and so sweetly aching, vivid with pulses of alternating pleasure and painstaking desire.

Desire, what was desire? She didn’t know, she didn’t _know_ , but she did discover that, tilted back over his arm as she was, she could slowly hike one of her thighs higher up around his waist. The other leg was curling around his hips, and along what timeline these adjustments occurred, she couldn’t have said. Time was no object. She only wanted to be engulfed, and to engulf, to be two seas crashing together, pulling his head in closer. But she was using all of her body to pull _all_ of him in closer, closer, arms sliding around his neck as she arched up, feeling again like she was fumbling. An eager fumbling, the joy of treasuring another body against her own, and so it felt right. Especially when her mind rolled smoothly open against Kylo’s, inviting him warmly to her, the thigh sliding against his ribs aligned with the sliding of her consciousness against his own.

Her fingers were roaming, without her conscious thought, searching for and finding the leather of his pants. A curious touch traced along the hem, but tame curiosity was long since verging on a much more insistent demand to _know_ , to feel, to see, to have that tormenting heat at hand, and she slipped her fingertips beneath the leather to begin firmly tugging down.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo wasn't sure exactly when Rey had wrapped her legs around him. He had vaguely been aware of hands moving over his shoulders and neck as he'd surrendered himself to the delicacies that were Rey's breasts, but it wasn't until he felt the tug of her fingers at the waistband of his pants, sending frissons of pure, sizzling lust straight to his groin, that he became equally aware of the knee he could feel sliding against his ribs and the way that his hips were trapped in the crook of its twin. As much as it felt wonderful to be caged in such a warm, fleshy prison, it quickly became clear that it made it impossible for Rey to ruche down more than an inch of the black, supple leather from around his waist before their tight, relentless embrace halted all progress. He knew she wanted more. He could hear the insistence of her desire echoing out from her mind into his. Whatever mental barriers she had been holding up between them, she had allowed them to lower now, and the embrace of her mind was just as paradisiacal as that of her legs. Her consciousness lapped against his, just as his tongue lapped at her nipples, turning his attention to each one in turn, and he could feel how much she wanted _more_. He recognized it. Her intensity was matched by his own.

Her legs curled around his waist might not have been the ideal position for further disrobing, but it _did_ make it blissfully easy for Kylo to scoop her into his arms as he rose from the bed, his mouth still clamped over one of her breasts, unwilling to give up its newfound bounty. Moving blindly, he turned them around, then stooped to deposit her on her back at the edge of the mattress. He leaned over her, supporting his weight on his arms, as he bid a passionate, sloppy, and hopefully _temporary_ farewell to her breasts, before straightening to stand between her splayed knees.

He didn't waste any time, lifting first one foot then the other to rest against the edge of the bed as he divested himself of his boots. They thudded to the floor, landing haphazardly where they fell. Kylo was already rolling the leather of his pants down over his hips. He felt like there should be something holding him back, the sense of a boundary about to be crossed. Rey had seen him shirtless before. She had seen him sprawled in the snow at her feet. She had seen him crackling with dark energy as he fought like a wild thing by her side. She had seen him emotionally vulnerable, offering her the galaxy in return for the touch of her fingers. But she had _never_ seen him in his kriffing underwear before. No one had, save the droids who helped him dress and a slew of people who had known him as a child, most of whom were now dead. However, with the edges of his mind painted as they were with the residue of her curious excitement, he couldn't find the pause he'd thought would come so naturally. He wanted to be back on the bed with her. He wanted to feel her skin beneath his lips again. He wanted to know what kind of bliss waited ahead, when it was just them and their minds and their bodies and the Force, without time or space or clothes or obligations or duties to keep them apart any longer. So, as much as his fingers trembled with barely suppressed nervous energy, he went about quickly and methodically stripping himself, first of his pants, then of the tight, black shorts that lay beneath them, until he stood before her completely bared.

"I think, this time, we can agree that my turn is over," he said huskily, rising back to his full height to look down at her.

✦ ✦ ✦

Logistics, again – there was no way to keep herself wrapped around him while also stripping him out of the lower leather layers that had been so frequently in the way. But, just as logistics had mattered very little moments ago, they continued to matter very little now, and the hot, chaotic rush of simply being _close_ , disorganized as it was, fueled her blindly onward. There was no shortage of skin for her hands to wander over, climbing slopes of muscle and sliding into warm divots, and maybe writhing clumsily was all she could manage, without the strategy, or restraint, to pull herself away. She couldn’t imagine anything that would have drawn her away from the attention his mouth was painting on her, or the tight, heavy enclosure of his arms, and she had never known a more frantic urge than hunger. Even now, even if food was not the temptation.

How tangled she might have become in her efforts to wind them closer together was a thought that easily tipped from her mind as she felt herself being lifted, her disorderly desire finding some semblance of structure in the mind her own was sinking itself into. Blinking heavy-lidded eyes open, she found her perspective of the room shifting once again, and felt the mattress meeting her back, eyes fluttering shut with a hopeless sigh as his mouth moved hot and heavy and graciously across her breasts, and if he’d lingered any longer, she would have tied herself into a new knot to keep him there. There was not, however, any time for sliding her arms around him to hold him in place, or to clamber up against the tower of his body with that persistent surge of longing that wanted to have him wrapped between her legs as much as her arms. Everything, all at once; she began to sit up on her elbows once he was lifting himself away, stopped by the sudden appearance of a solid black boot on the edge of the bed.

And then the other, both discarded to land empty on the floor, a sight that sent an inordinate twist of lust from her hips to her shoulders. By the time she lifted her eyes back up, he was already rolling the black leather down over his hips, and she curled her fingers slowly into the sheets on either side of her. The parallel functions of breathing and swallowing crossed for a distracted moment, and she forced down a thick knot in her throat. She’d seen him, from the waist up, with nothing at all, and she’d seen him bare in cooler instances outside of that. When he’d acknowledged her loneliness; when he’d haplessly offered her everything she didn’t want. She’d _seen_ him, as she’d disclosed, in dreams and in visions, the light that waited, poised, glowing within him. She had never, however, seen him the way she wanted to see him now, even in her most scandalous dreams. She couldn’t explain why she wanted to, where that feeling had come from, any more than she could explain why she’d craved his mouth on her breasts, or why she wanted to have him caught between her thighs.

But he wasn’t demanding answers from her – all she could feel was the fire of his pulsing mind against her own, just as she’d felt the fire of his yearning on the forest floor, and in the cockpit, and now she needed to feel it as it was, raw, bare. Dropping her rapt gaze after the leather that he was peeling from his legs, she regarded in open fascination the simple layer that was revealed afterward — black, black — then skirted a glance to the side when there was no more black to be lost. Only skin, and still, somehow, _only skin_ felt like a lie, and as she drew her attention almost guilty back along the ridge of his hips and then down, she could think of nothing but her great hunger, how it colored everything she knew, how it gripped her now.

There just wasn’t enough time – once he had straightened to his full, ridiculous height, and was nothing but interrupted, unclaimed skin, and hard muscle, and contours and radiant heat, she could have scaled that vision with her spellbound gaze infinitely. A visual climb that she did, in fact, repeat while she had the opportunity, savoring the long, slow slide of her gaze down, from broad shoulders to knees, and then back up, loitering in shameless curiosity over the addition of several startling inches to her mental map of his body. A map that was not, until now, complete, and even then she knew it wasn’t _complete_. It couldn’t be complete by sight alone, and her other senses were roused beyond recognition. She wanted to hear the blood drumming through his veins, and she wanted to hear his proud, husky tone grating over her most tender skin. She wanted to be submerged in the hot scent of his skin, sweat and forest and leather and smoke, and she wanted to touch him, for more than the many, many nights he had promised her, but her most overwhelming, nonsensical impulse was to taste.

His understanding of turn-taking would simply have to bow to her own, and she brought her gaze up to his face, held it there in bottomless disbelief, and then sat herself up. Inching forward, she reached to skate her hands along the backs of his thighs, lightly tracing the new, taut lines before taking a firmer hold, bringing herself closer and leaning in to feather a kiss over the swell of one abdominal muscle. And then another, trailing lower, bristling with the need to not only taste his skin, but also to make him feel the same pleasure he’d just bestowed upon her. If it could be done, and maybe it was just another fluke of desire. Maybe it was only something untrained, feral, bawdy desert creatures gave into. Regardless, she couldn’t bring his turn to an end, not quite, grazing her lips and a challenge over his length of hot, red skin.

“Think again.”


	8. Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I want to see the rest of you," he murmured, nuzzling his nose against her cheek as he gasped for breath, his hands sliding back up her legs and beneath the cuffs of her leggings to smooth over the skin of her calves. "I want to _taste_ the rest of you. I want to know you like you know me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 

Her eyes met his and Kylo was filled with the urge to be close to her again, immediately, to touch her and taste her and—

His plan to crawl back over her and cover her bare torso – which he now had an unrivaled view of – with kisses was interrupted when she suddenly sat up. A look of confusion passed across his face (Was _this_ it? Was she stopping him now?) and he made to step back as she shuffled herself towards the edge of the bed, her feet finding the floor. Her hands rose and he was sure they were going to push, but instead, they found the backs of his thighs, halting his movement (and his breath, and his heart, and any conscious train of thought he'd been possessed of) with the featherlight touch of her fingertips which made every hair on his now very naked body stand on end. All he could do was watch, dumbfounded, as her face inched closer to his stomach, her lips alighting on the skin covering muscles he held tight in a desperate bid not to move and ruin whatever dream he'd stumbled into.

Her lips moved, following the line of ebony hair that led downwards from his navel, and he felt as though starlight was dancing through his skin, every nerve ending alive with prickles and shivers and silvery warmth. He could feel her kiss right from the tips of his very pink ears down to the soles of his feet. He thought there couldn't possibly be any sensation in the universe that could match this one.

She proved him wrong almost immediately. If there had been more blood going spare in his body to facilitate normal cognitive function, he might have realized sooner what she was planning to do. He might have been able to stop her, to assure her that she didn't have to, that he didn't expect it of her, but his mind was woefully, blissfully blank as he watched her lips brush the head of his jutting cock.

The heat of her mouth against the sensitive glans sent a shockwave through him and he watched in awe as the length of him twitched against her mouth, slave to the muscles which suddenly tensed throughout his body.

"Oh," he breathed, his jaw hanging slack and his pupils blown wide in wonder, as his hand rose, unbidden, to brush a few wispy strands of hair back from her face. "That is..." 

If he couldn't hear the cacophony of his own heartbeat ringing in his ears as it ushered every last drop of blood in his body downward to meet Rey's kiss, he might have believed he'd died and found some kind of heaven. There wasn't a word to describe it. If there was, he couldn't think of it. So he just let his chin bob slightly, his eyebrows high on his forehead and drawn together in something like bliss.

✦ ✦ ✦

_That is_ … what? Terrible? Wrong? It didn’t feel wrong to her, at least not from what her lips had found against his skin, which was a delectable new definition of heat. One she could palpably feel, against her lips, which had no idea what to expect once she’d impulsively placed them against him. There was also no sense of direction when it came to what she meant to do next, only what she _wanted_ , which was to have every part of him against every part of her. Lifting her eyes, for a moment uncertain of what she might find, she took in the sight of Kylo’s face.

The hard line of his jaw wasn’t held quite as tight as it normally was, and his eyes looked deeper, if it were possible, an intoxicating, night-sky black. The gentle bobbing of his chin left her expecting words, refusal, maybe, and the hand that came up to brush curled wisps from her face set her muscles stiff, feeling that she might be pushed aside. His fingers were not stopping her, however, and she might have read the look on his face as wonder if he’d said anything to endorse that. No more words were forthcoming, though she could feel the thrum of electricity that seemed to swim through him, and the twitch of his cock against her lips, which set her fingers into a tighter grip on his thighs.

She could only hesitate for so long, wondering what conclusion he had come to, because the wildly new taste that she had found was guiding her attention back down, where she gave in to the temptation to open her lips around his head, meeting the new skin there with a curious glide of her tongue. The heat of pounding blood beneath his skin was so close that she could nearly taste it, and what she _could_ taste was so forbidden that she let go of a marveling hum as she ventured further. Just enough to let the weight and heat of him be eased into the soft, seeking warmth of her mouth, holding that unfamiliar sensation there. Her tongue did not react to awe with stillness, however, and she didn’t think too carefully about the exploration it was making.

If she’d been handed a delicious piece of fruit from a faraway planet, she wouldn’t have wasted too much time admiring it quietly. She would have plundered it in sheer delight, ravaging its hard skin and its softer flesh and its whimsical juices with a fearless pirate of a tongue. That was exactly what she’d done with his mouth when he’d opened it to her, and that was exactly what she was doing now, leaning in to traverse the new length with a hungry, inquisitive mouth.

Curls of her tongue traveled the completely novel texture of the skin he’d bared to her, sweet and hard, and smoothed back over the girth of it, a puff of breath escaping as she wandered her lips back up, where they curved and slid effortlessly over the head of him. And then back down, having to resist the urge to nibble with her teeth, sliding her palm along the tense muscle of his thigh and only registering through that tension that he hadn’t completed his sentence. Slipping her lips free, leaving his skin glistening, and then sitting back, she darted her culpable hazel gaze up to his face, aware of her own heart beating heavily.

“Sorry. Sorry? I don’t know what I’m—” and she had to stop as soon as she began, because she wasn’t sure what she was doing, or feeling, or why she wanted the things she did, only that she had never wanted so much of _everything_ , and so wildly, with her mouth and her hands and her whole aching body. Glancing down, and then back up, she lifted her own hand to brush back hair that had begun coming lose in the fray, flustered and brimming with ongoing curiosity and a hunger that most certainly should be kept behind a locked door, and maybe to herself. “Should I not do that? I don’t know why I wanted to do that. Sorry.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo was completely lost to the sensation of Rey's mouth cradling his cock. He was rendered dumb – a pair of gaping lips and goggling eyes with no sense in between. She hummed around him, a deep, rich alto sound in the back of her throat, close to where the tip of him rested against her tongue, and it was all he could do to force down the twisting coils of pleasure that wanted to spill out of him as the vibrations rocked every nerve in his body. His fingers slid further around the side of her head, sliding beneath her earlobe until he could feel the silk of her hair where it was pulled back into its lowermost bun, and tightened a little as he reached for something that would ground him in reality. He was arguably the most powerful being in the galaxy, commander of thousands of legions, controller of a fleet of starships to rival any in history, Master of the Knights of Ren and the strongest Dark Side user in the known universe, and yet— And yet Rey had him close to ruined with only her eager mouth and her scavenger's intuition to _claim_.

He watched with rapture as she explored him, forcing himself to breathe or swallow or blink at various intervals when his head grew light, his throat grated dryly or his eyes began to prickle. She was a vision – fearless and instinctive. She claimed his body as she fought him, with her whole self, and all he could do was accept his fate, which at that moment seemed to be to fall apart beneath her touch.

A deep, faltering breath seeped into Kylo's lungs when Rey pulled away, bringing him back from the brink he'd been teetering on. He pressed his lips together over a gulp, and the corners of his lips twitched upwards slightly, but then she was apologizing and her uncertainty had him automatically shaking his head to refute her concerns.

"No. No," he said, leaning over and using the hand beside her cheek to pull her lips up to his so he could speak against her mouth. "Don't say that." His eyes screwed shut as he kissed her, urgently and intensely, in a bid to dispel her misgivings. "You're incredible. That was incredible." He pushed the truth of it forward from his mind to hers along the invisible thread that connected them, well aware that it would be tinged with his embarrassment at not being able to withstand more but strangely content with the idea of her knowing his vulnerabilities.

His knee found the cold, black floor and was quickly joined by its twin as he knelt between her legs and pulled her close to kiss her more fully. His tongue curled against hers as his hands wandered, revisiting all his new favorite places before slipping lower to the still-clothed portion of her body. They slid down her legs on either side of him, forcing her thighs tight against his ribs and exploring the lines that her body made beneath her leggings. His fingertips eventually found bare skin at her shins and, beneath them, the worn, linen tops of her boots. His fingers curled around either ankle until he was grasping her two heels, then he pulled, one after the other, so that the boots fell free of her.

"I want to see the rest of you," he murmured, nuzzling his nose against her cheek as he gasped for breath, his hands sliding back up her legs and beneath the cuffs of her leggings to smooth over the skin of her calves. "I want to _taste_ the rest of you. I want to know you like you know me."

✦ ✦ ✦

The truth was that she _didn’t_ know what she was doing, just as she generally didn’t know what she was doing when she wielded a lightsaber, or reached out through the veins of the Force to seek the guidance of all those who had come before her. Often she was met with silence, or her own stumbling steps, or the boiling energy of frustration. There were no signposts along that flat expanse of inexperience, and for the most part, she had come to accept that. When it was herself alone, anyway; if it was only her, scraping out a life in the hull of a fallen AT-AT, collecting scrap, unable to imagine the way forward, there was no harm done. She had the insubstantial vision of the past to keep her settled where she was. Now, though, she wasn’t fumbling for her own sake. She wanted to know what she was doing, and how, and to what effect; she felt herself _wanting_ to move forward, as famished to see what lay ahead as she ever had been to scurry back to what had been left behind.

Awaiting the answer to her novice gamble, then, was an anxiety she was unfamiliar with. She wanted to make him hers, but she also wanted him to _want_ to belong to her. It was possessive and fierce, and full of the fascination of uncovering something she’d long been looking for. Something she wanted to keep, but unlike an object that she was only keeping in order to trade away for something sustaining, a barter for survival, she wanted to keep him. He _was_ the sustainment, and that realization cramped a furious yearning through every inch of her body. It was with gasping gratitude that she found herself back against his mouth, a place she could speak her wordless hunger, and both hands flew up to find the sides of his face as she burrowed her tongue past his lips.

The warm tide that frothed up against her mind corroborated the truth of his words, and she pushed back with her own warm swell, one that lapped over the flicker of embarrassment she sensed, embracing it. Skimming her tongue over the edge of his teeth, and then delving into the tropical heat of his mouth, she fervently reclaimed everything that she’d already made her own, laving smoothly into the curve of his tongue where her own fit. A ritual that felt not only necessary but hopelessly addictive, only able to catch a breath once he was speaking again, and she became dimly aware of the heels of her boots sliding off her feet.

Her thighs needed no prompting to grip him by the ribs, driven to squeeze the barrel of his body by some urgent impulse anyway, and she turned her head to scatter her quickened, eager breath along his jaw. The gliding of his hands over her legs inspired her own hands to wander, sliding back down over his shoulders and steadying there as she paid his words the attention needed to comprehend what he was saying. The gentle chafe of his wide palms over her calves was an unexpected pleasure, an itch, and she wanted more, shifting restlessly, pulling him closer, and she spent a distracted moment wondering how he meant to _taste_ her. Her imagination took wing first, and that was enough, fingers falling to find the hem of her sullied leggings. Lifting her hips to hurriedly shimmy them down, they were freed with ease without the interruption of her boots. That left her sitting in the drab, close glove of her underwear, and a glance up sufficed to convey her sheepishness at having Kylo see that.

There was a cloying, humid heat between her legs, however, and having him sitting so close between her knees now was doing nothing to tame it. Unfolding her legs from the final piece of clothing before tossing it aside, she brought her knees brushing back in against his ribs, gaze searching his face with a flick of self-conscious curiosity before drawing her hands up along the sides of his neck. The rogue thought crossed her mind that if she had a taste, it must be dirty – grimy engine grease, wet foliage and pungent earth, smears of dirt, glowing sweat. Against the sheen of burnished black that was the First Order, she couldn’t help but notice. Then she couldn’t help but remark on it aloud, fingers dipping back into unfurled black hair as her knee rose against his ribs.

“There’s nothing to know about me. I’m no one.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo felt her shifting on the bed before he realized what she was doing but when he did he leaned back and watched as she peeled her leggings off, giving his eyes the gift of _yards_ more softly tanned skin to drink in. His palms skimmed the outsides of her calves, her knees and her thighs as he memorized this new terrain, watching with wonder as the fine hairs on her legs rose meet to his touch. When they reached her hips, skirting over the pale fabric of her underwear, his gaze was drawn down to the enticing 'v' at the apex of her thighs and he subconsciously wet his lips in anticipation at the thought of what lay beneath.

He found he wasn't left to wonder for very long. Again, she shifted her hips and he felt the last remaining scrap of cloth slipping out from beneath his fingers, and he watched, wide-eyed, as she rolled the underwear down her long legs and tossed them aside. His gaze tracked its earlier path, across each freckle and ripple of muscle, until it alighted on the thatch of soft-looking curls at her groin. His chest heaved as air flooded his lungs on a hungry, desperate gasp and, _stars_ , he could _smell_ her – musky and rich and sweet and deep. He wanted to drown in the scent.

He didn't realize he was staring until—

Self-consciousness. He felt it through the Force, through their bond, as though it were his own being reflected back at him, and for a moment he didn't understand how this beautiful creature, who held so much power over him just by existing, could possibly feel self-conscious in front of him. Couldn't she sense the way he worshiped her? Couldn't she tell how hungry he was for her, how his whole body ached to be against her, around her, _inside_ her?

_I'm no one._

His fingers clenched around her thighs as he lifted his chin to meet her gaze with a ferocious gleam in his eye.

"You're nothing," he agreed, with a slight nod of his head, his jaw firm and resolute. She hadn't understood him the last time he'd told her that but he thought there was a chance she would now. She was nothing. So was he. In the grand scheme of things, what were any of them but specks against the vastness of the Force? "But, Rey—" He lifted one hand to cup her cheek, forcing her gaze to remain on him. " _Not to me._ " His lips twitched around a breath as his thumb smoothed over her cheek, and he found himself nodding, willing her to do the same, willing her to believe him.

"Besides," he murmured, dipping his head to press a kiss to the column of her throat. "You are so much more than you know." His mouth trailed lower, finding the jutting prominences of her collar bones and peppering them with kisses. "My mind is open to you. You can see for yourself." His hand had fallen from her face to her shoulder, and it dropped lower to meet his mouth at her breasts, where they repeated their earlier collaboration to caress with fingers and tongue. When they relinquished their possession, his mouth followed the line of her sternum downwards towards her navel, while his hand joined its pair at her ribcage to gently coax her to lay back. If she took him up on his offer, she would feel the way her skin beneath his lips set his body aflame, how his cock ached to be swallowed by her warmth, twitching and throbbing where it stood against his stomach, how her scent filled his head until yearning to taste her was all he could think of, how her fingers in his hair felt like the touch of contentment itself, how this closeness, and the promise of _more_ , felt like being welcomed home to the only place in the galaxy he belonged. She would see herself the way he saw her, strong and stubborn and independent and mighty, defiant and infuriating and intoxicating. She would understand how much he needed her to stand beside him, whatever side that happened to be on, and how her absence had tormented him since the moment she'd left him. She would know how much she didn't need to worry about being any more than what she was, because what she was was everything he wanted.

✦ ✦ ✦

She’d begun as nothing and she’d remained nothing, even as she’d been whirled along by the current of a story that wasn’t her own. Her story, the one she belonged in, the only one she was actually stitched into, was somewhere in the trackless dunes of Jakku. The only account of her life was in the tallies she’d kept on the wall. Outside of that, outside of Jakku, perhaps there were Jedis, and perhaps the rebels would go on battling the new empire, and perhaps there were more stars and suns and moons than she would ever see, but those stories were not hers. There was no place for someone like her, and Luke had cut to the truth of that as soon as she’d confronted him.

 _What’s so special about you?_

The hollowness of the question was its answer, and despite the camaraderie she’d found within the Resistance, it was not her story. If they tore out the leaf of her page, the galaxy would never know the difference.

And Kylo knew it – maybe she should’ve known, after how cleanly he’d reached through her loneliness, with plasma clarity, that he would see through the lie of her life just as easily. He’d known she was nothing, and he’d been mystified that even a droid would deign to share its jumble of code with her. A droid, they both knew, was more valuable intrinsically. A droid was worth something. She knew this the way her hands knew how to finagle the rusted innards of a starfighter, to repair what might otherwise be left for scrap. To find meaning in a junkyard, to _be_ scrap, and that hadn’t changed, eyes skipping back up as the hand at her cheek encouraged her to do so. 

_You’re nothing._

In Snoke’s ruined throne room, those same words had burned liked the embers falling around them, the same as the snapping bite of the Bilari chain whip against her arm, branding the skin. This was a different brand, one she would always wear even if no one could see it. Kylo could see it; it was as if he could _feel_ it, as if he held the exact weight of her nothingness in his hands and still refused to let her go. Despite how little she meant, how little she was, how she physically embodied it. He’d wanted, once, to fill that nothingness with darkness. Hadn’t he? He’d wanted to destroy not only the Sith but also the Jedi, to lay everything to waste, to let it all burn, star for star. He’d wanted to help her become something that she wasn’t, another vessel, and she felt a quiver at her lips, following the faint nodding of his head with her own.

Because now, something had shifted. Now it was something else, and because she _could_ feel his mind open to her, and because she could feel her own willing him closer, desperate to have him as deeply in her every thought as she was to have him pushed flush against her body, she could feel that he wasn’t seeing past her. He was simply seeing her, exactly as she was, and there was that odd kaleidoscope of their minds bridging that allowed her to see it, too. A duplication of her desire, every nerve and sensation doubled, a magnification, so that when his mouth danced over her collarbones, and then over the tingling skin of her breasts, she knotted her fingers into his hair with another dazzled squirm. Everything was a riot of fluttering anticipation, his and her own, a pandemonium of hunger that she could feel inside his head. His throbbing was her throbbing, she could feel the taut pull of her own flushed skin beneath his lips, how her body curved to be found, how breathlessly it waited to be opened, to blur the lines of where she ended and he began, just as she was no longer sure which strobing, longing thoughts were her own.

There was hardly any focus to spare for anything but the descent of his mouth, how the hands at her ribcage had somehow eased her down, and she felt the small of her back arch with a tight pang of need, the lean muscle of her legs bracing. Then they were softening under a wave of what she knew as nothing other than pure longing, parting at the nearness of his mouth. She’d felt the brush of his lips on her own lips, and now on almost every inch of skin between her mouth and her navel, and still she was aching as if she’d never felt it before, and the sense of _home_ that was rippling across his mind was cascading over her own awareness, making everything that had passed as ‘home’ before this moment feel like empty shells. They were; she knew that like she knew the stroke of his thoughts against her own, and she knew it more than she knew how to breathe, struggling, suddenly, to capture enough air in her chest, heart racing to keep up as she slid her back against his sheets. It felt like unspent passion was convulsing lightly just beneath the surface of her thoughts the same way it was in her skin, wanting his consciousness heaved against her own, inside her own, as much as she needed his hands and his tongue and his staggering promises, murmuring a plea that was half a whisper.

“Be nothing with me,” and maybe in being nothing, they could be more than what they were. Not the Supreme Leader and not a scavenger, but the brilliant stardust the Force had tried to make of them, and she’d spent months wanting to see none of it, to feel none of it, to believe she was something else. Now she needed nothing more. “I want you inside my head, closer. I want to feel it.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Yes. _Yes!_ Now she understood. He could sense it, feel the rhythm of her thoughts falling in time with his own. People had spent his whole life telling him he was special, that he was destined for greatness, and had diligently strived to harness that greatness and the power that flowed through him to their own ends. His shoulders had grown broad under the weight of a galaxy's expectations. But he wasn't special. He had never thought he was, always doubted himself, always been painfully aware of the shortcomings which others had either feared or exploited. He had tried to be who they wanted him to be – his mother, Han Solo, Skywalker, Snoke. He had tied himself in knots trying to live up to the potential they all saw in him, the potential his pedigree demanded. He had given everything, and what had it gained him? He might have banned use of the name, but that didn't change the fact that he was still Ben Solo beneath it all, the awkward boy with too-big ears who had never been able to live up to what people expected of him. He wasn't special. He was nothing. But with Rey, he could be _something_ , even if only to her.

"I'm nothing," he breathed against the skin of her inner thigh, sitting back on his knees as he lifted her slender leg to hook over his shoulder. _But I'm yours_ , he added silently, pushing the thought directly from his mind to hers, granting her the invasion she'd demanded. His lips trailed upwards until he felt the tickle of hair against his nose and the heady scent of her filled his lungs. He lifted his gaze then, as he lifted her other leg to join the first, and gulped at the view that awaited him. He had traveled the galaxy, seen every kind of terrain the human mind could imagine, but he had never seen anything quite as breathtaking as Rey laid out before him, reclined at his suggestion, her small breasts rising and falling raggedly, tension in her flat stomach as she arched her back against the bed and, lower, the mouthwatering pinkness of her sex, couched beneath a thatch of short hairs that shielded it to all eyes but his. He let the sight seep out through his consciousness, determined that she should see how incredible she looked and feel the way his pulse rushed as he lowered his face to nuzzle into the gap between her thighs and press an experimental kiss to her nether lips.

She was soft and oh, so warm. And wet, he realized, as he lifted his head and felt moisture coating his lips. His tongue passed over them, tasting her, and he groaned at the realization that she tasted the way she smelled – delicious and sweet and earthy and deep, tangy and salty and, _Maker_ , this could be all he tasted for the rest of his life and he swore he would never pine for any other flavor.

His hands snaked up around the curves of her hips until his fingertips met over her abdomen, holding her close as he buried his face back against her and ran an unschooled but ravenous tongue up the length of that tantalizing slit. It slid through folds as soft as dreamsilk and was coated in more of that rich juice, which he lapped up hungrily, murmuring his appreciation into her body and mind as he did so. A few more strokes had him learning the shape of her, the way she peaked at the top before sliding away into a deep, beckoning heat, and a further few taught him the way her body responded beneath his mouth. He was a quick study and he let her guide him, bowing to her pleasure just as he bowed before her at the bed, lapping up the stream of her consciousness just as he lapped at her fevered flesh.

✦ ✦ ✦

_There_ was the other half she’d been waiting for, consciously or not, ever since he’d offered her the galaxy – she was nothing, but so was he. How could she ever know that he would be happy being no one, if all she’d seen was his furious march toward total dominion? She didn’t want it, she never had, and she could be no one, happily, if it meant she wasn’t alone. If it meant she was no one with someone else; if it meant, after years of scavenging, that she’d finally found her most treasured belonging in the heart of another person. That was all she wanted, and it was all she needed, after how long she’d spent subsisting on very little. What else was there, across all the stars in the universe? All anyone wanted was to belong, to be half of a whole, and as she felt him offering his half to hers, it broke like the illuminated spine of a moon across her thoughts. As one leg was settled over his shoulder, and then the other, she let out a breath that felt as if it had rejuvenated the deepest reaches of her lungs.

The vow she sent back, almost without her conscious thought – _I’ll always be yours_ – was swift and flush, a confession meant to be made before the galaxy, in all of its cruel humor, could test it. How many ways could it go wrong? How many directions could they be pulled? How many wars and arbitrary catastrophes could wrench apart what they’d found? The Force could realign her consciousness anywhere, couldn’t it? And after what she’d felt, the things she’d seen, and the tremble of connection that joined them now, she didn’t want to belong anywhere else. She wanted to be nothing, right where she was.

That grasping thought smoothed away under the lurid imagery being shuttled to her, seeing through eyes that were not her own, and the hot scuff of his face nuzzling against the inside of her thigh sent tension webbing up across the muscles of her back, tight and then lax. Anticipating and then yielding, and she felt her toes curling somewhere against his back, gritting her teeth as she felt first the warmth of his breath, and then the cushion of his lips. One glance down was all she could spare, glimpsing black hair and the pink of his tongue gliding over his lips, and then she was closing her eyes as his palms slid over her torso, her own fingers tumbling over his hands in the off-chance that she needed something to hold onto.

It wasn’t an off-chance – it was an immediate need, and as his tongue breached the softest of her skin, a touch against the part of her that was pounding with the deepest ache, she let go of a sharp sound of surprise, as if burned. The hot pad of his tongue was enough to cover her own, to swim over every feature of her mouth and to pry open her lips, willing as they always were. Now that tongue was softly slipping through another pair of lips, tasting what she hadn’t imagined he would _want_ to taste, and she could feel herself melting here, too, just like her mouth did against his. In silky, warm waves, and with pulses of heat, and his lapping tongue made it impossible to stay still, curving herself up against the pressure of his hands. She _could_ stay still – for one beat, allowing his tongue to sliver over folds of wet skin, and then though them, long enough to feel him sliding against flesh that was growing warmer, that was pulsing in a silent plea for deeper, _one_ stroke deeper, long enough to feel her legs tighten at the obscene pleasure that threatened to spill over her, feeling her face drawn, mouth open, brows taut and high – and then she bucked away. A chase that was gleefully indulged again, over and over, bailing her hips up when his tongue came too close to sleeking over the hooded pearl that was throbbing for the very attention she aimed to keep away.

He was clever, it was as if he already knew her, but of course he would, because her pleasure was a flamboyant blossom blooming across the face of every thought. His tongue was teasing delight out of every fold it found, lapping up a slicker and slicker heat, and a higher moan lifted free as she realized that there was no escaping that. She couldn’t weasel her hips away, only treating herself to new and abrupt glides of his tongue when she did, and all she could hope was to pull him into the maddening, undulating cauldron of her mind, to let him feel her heartbeat on every pass of his tongue, to feel how tightly-strung she was, how close to openly begging for more, and _more_. To succumb to her hunger the way her body was succumbing to his tongue, pressing him closer with her thighs, and her wily hips, and her fingers splaying out over his arms.

“Ky- _lo_ ,” she pleaded when she couldn’t imagine his body being apart from her own any longer, snapping his name in two like a dry twig. The latter half sprang into a high moan as his tongue slid over the bud she’d been stubbornly keeping him from, her body more keen on kissing his mouth than she was on avoiding the pleasure it spiked through her, head dropping back to roughly shove her half-made buns into the sheets. “Come _here_.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Her vow, in that moment, was sincere and Kylo felt it spreading throughout all that he was, lifting him until he felt weightless and unburdened, only held in reality by the solid presence of her thighs on his shoulders. There were a million ways their promises to each other would be tested in whatever came _after_ – Kylo was not naïve enough to think that the rest of the galaxy's problems, which had stringently fought to keep them apart, would just melt away while they were sequestered in his quarters together – but they would face each challenge as it presented itself. They would keep moving forwards. There was nothing else that people such as them could do, tossed on the tides of fate. But this time they would be together and that would make all the difference. Kylo remembered the sense of resolution that had washed over him when she had come to him on the _Supremacy_ , when she had chosen to fight for him and trust in the connection they had both sensed and tentatively reached for. She was bolder than him. She was fearless. She had trusted him completely and the clarity with which he'd seen his way forward had been startling – she had been like a beacon in the darkness, guiding him onwards. For the first time in his life, he'd known what he had to do, and he'd known, looking into her eyes and feeling the fire in them that she offered guilelessly to him, that he'd have the strength to do it. When they were together, they could do anything.

His fingers laced and unlaced with hers at her stomach while his mouth moved with the bucking of her hips, chasing her through the pleasure he could feel seeping into him from her side of the bond. It was a heady sensation, reveling in second-hand delight, _feeling_ her surrender and rewarding her with the _more_ she was so close to begging for. His tongue may have been inexpert but he devoured her with an enthusiasm he hadn't felt for anything in years. He could sense her desperation rising as tension coiled through her body, and he murmured encouraging, sweet nothings into the deep, warm parts of her. He could tell there was a place she wanted him to touch, and his own desperation began to mount as he searched for it blindly, but whenever he thought he got near she fled from him. It was like a game, one they'd played before – him the hunter, her his prey. She should know by now that he wouldn't give up.

And _there_ it was. The tip of his tongue passed over a small, hooded bud at the peak of her and suddenly white-hot pleasure was spiking through her mind into his, combining with his own frenzy at the sound of her _moaning his name_. He groaned against her, his eyelids fluttering slightly as his fingers tightened to press bruises into her hips, but then she was commanding him to her and he was obeying and it felt like the most natural thing in the world for him to do so.

Her body was long and lean and golden beneath him as he crawled his way over her; he caught glimpses of it as he kissed his way up the contours of her, leaving a trail of her juices in his wake, which he quickly smoothed away with his wandering palms. Soon, his lips found hers again and he put his tongue's new-found experience to immediate use, invading her mouth and sharing all the secrets of her body with her.

They were still at the foot of his bed and his shins bumped painfully against the hard, black frames as his knees clamored for purchase on the mattress. With a frustrated grunt, he slid one corded forearm beneath her and clutched her to him as he moved them upwards, the sleek lines of her body sliding maddeningly against him, until he felt her head sink back against his thin, utilitarian pillow. Only then did he allow himself to feel all the skin pressed to his and the way the air molecules between them seemed to _vibrate_ with energy.

✦ ✦ ✦

Her command did not fall on deaf ears, she was thrilled to find, and it was only halfway through him crawling on top of her that she thought to be shocked. No one _commanded_ the Supreme Leader of the First Order, and anyone who did soon learned never to attempt such boldness again. The shadow of that danger had not flown across her mind; he was quick and obedient. He wasn’t all efficiency, however, which was a welcomed discovery – he was leaving enough time to kiss his way back up, tracing the taut lines of her torso, and leaving them warm with the wet track of his lips. His fingers sliding over those same glossy spots provoked her hips to reach up, feeling fluttery and restless, but then he was reaching her mouth and she was meeting him breathlessly.

The invasion of his tongue was not a sensation she would have ever fathomed craving – what could she ever possibly want in her mouth other than rations? Perhaps a question that was only now proving its wealth of answers, and she was beginning to feel like it was easier to breathe with his tongue in her mouth, a reverse drowning that allowed her to plunge into that desperate, ravenous contact and breathe again. Now that passionate sparring was bright with a new taste and electric with the nimble dancing of his tongue, and she murmured pleadingly against it, words that may not have been words at all. Or they may have simply been a stunned incantation of his name, breathing it against the surface of his lips before slipping deeper, her consciousness for a moment nothing more than the rising swells of tides, liquid motion and a reverberating hum and a wildly pulsing undertow.

She could feel his shins inelegantly meeting the frame of the bed, for the second time, a smile beginning to dimple both cheeks before she was being caught in the hook of his arm, escorted up in a smooth glide. Too smooth, a push of sleek friction that brought her body up against his thicker frame in such a way that she darted both hands up to grip his sides with small claws, deciding that he wouldn’t be moving far from this new position now that they’d found it. It was another possessive glint, and one she knew was entirely unnecessary given how securely separated they were from the rest of the world, with no other eyes in the room but their own.

That didn’t keep her hands from moving with a feisty heat, curling against the breadth of his ribs as she opened her eyes, finding him above her and quivering at the sight. A quiver that was both heat and expectant chill, flitting anxiety and pounding excitement, and a long, low wash of fire that tightened in her hips and left her regretting for a saucy moment that his face wasn’t still between her thighs to catch that gleaming storm of longing on his tongue.

_Then_ she became aware of the full press of his skin against her own, now with nothing at all remaining to keep them apart. That fact seemed to be blazing through the bond, too, or else it was her own fascination with how close their bodies could be, a vibrating energy. And it still wasn’t close enough; it felt like there was still so much to discover, sliding her thighs to slowly cradle the weight of his hips. One hand began an uninformed journey down, following the curve of his ribcage in to his torso, and the descending ‘v’ of muscle there down to the hot forest of black hair she’d noted before, but could now gently rake her fingers through. It was another impulse disjointed from logical thought; she needed to _feel_ him, that was all she knew, just like she’d needed to taste him, trailing her fingers down over what was a paradox of soft skin but deliciously hard length. She’d skimmed its shape and heat with her tongue and allowed her hand the same exploration now, sliding her small, hot palm, with a sigh, around what reminded her of the indestructible cylinder of a torrent engine.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo's mouth faltered against Rey's as he felt her hand sliding down the length of his body, over the puckered skin of the scar on his abdomen and through the hair at his groin, until her fingers curled around the waiting shaft of his cock. He could feel his blood vessels throbbing hard against her warm palm, calling to her, a song that echoed through his blood in every part of him. He broke away from her lips and shifted slightly so his weight was supported on one elbow, his nose hovering just above hers, tip to tip, and his hair tumbling down around their faces, a haphazardly draped, black, silk curtain. It was a slight change of position but it freed Kylo's hand up to follow hers down between them. He found the place where her fingers circled his erection and covered them with his own, guiding her into a tighter grip. Images spilled through his mind of the countless times he'd touched himself like this and imagined it was her hand instead of his own, with only the stillness of night and the whir of recycled air to witness the helpless way he'd breathed her name. Now, he could feel her fingers beneath his, and they were solid and warm, _real_ not imagined, fearlessly exploring, claiming him back from the night.

His eyes roamed over her face, watching for any signs that he had been misguided in his silent, naked honesty, before he slowly started to move her hand with his, up the length of him until her palm brush his cockhead. A little spasm ricocheted through him at the sensation and he had to gulp down a steadying breath before he could continue, guiding her hand back down to his base. It felt frighteningly intimate, gazing into the eyes that had haunted his dreams and held his heart captive for the better part of a year, while he taught her what he liked, how to make him fall apart at her touch. Not that she'd been having any trouble with that on her own. Still, with their minds so closely bridged he knew she'd be able to feel the way her intrepid fist sent ecstasy racing through his nerve endings, how tighter was better, and how he was eager for her to catch on quickly so he could _repay the favor_.

His hand loosened from around hers, entrusting his cock to her grasp, and he slipped it between her legs instead. His fingers found the soft insides of her thighs and he followed them upwards until he felt that slick, wet heat he'd lapped at so hungrily when he'd been on his knees at her feet. He ran two fingers through her glossy folds, matching each landmark with the map he'd made of her in his mind: that little bud towards the front that he'd chased so relentlessly with his tongue, the lips that kissed as hotly as her mouth, and the deep place that beckoned with the promise of velvety heat. Temptation called to him, urging him deeper, and he carefully let the tip of one finger dip inside her as his forehead pressed to hers up above.

_Show me what you like._

✦ ✦ ✦

She’d had to learn everything on her own; gritty experience was her only teacher, and survival made the lessons stick. She had to learn, and she had to be quicker about it than anyone else skulking through the desert. She had herself to rely on, the muscles of her back and legs, and a grungy speeder. There was no one to show her the way; she had to blaze it herself. That pioneering spirit led her now, but then she was feeling thicker fingers enclosing her own, and she looked up at the same time that her mind was suddenly host to borrowed memories. They made her blush: Kylo’s own hand around his own cock; darkness and stillness, except for a loud, lonely heart; her name, absent of her being there. That deep pocket of night they shared together, so far apart.

But his heavier hand was placing her fingers where they needed to be, into a tight squeeze, and she diligently made a vice of her curling palm. He guided her up, brushing against his plump head, which he seemed to like, and then back down, and the quivering bond allowed her to feel how each stroke of her snug, curious fist hunted pleasure straight across his skin. It made her want to tug more firmly – to give every line in her palm a place to fit against the texture of that hard length, and pull. Holding his gaze just as intently, she consumed the mute, minuscule lessons, gauging by the fall of breath though his nose, so close against her own, where his reactions lay. Where, on the underside of him, there were veins to trace that could make him twitch; how she could glide the tight hoop of her fingers up to just below the head, stop, drop back down, and then race back up to try and earn a hard throb.

Then her hand was her own again, and she sifted her gaze up through the disheveled shadow of his hair. Suspense flickered through her thigh at his touch, and his roving fingers lit every muscle of her back. Losing his gaze briefly as her eyes fell shut, she blinked them open a moment later at the demand being whispered directly into her head. Now the blush that found her was guilty, spilling memories of her own fraught hours. Lying on her stomach, wrist trapped beneath her hips as she frantically stroked her own slick mess over that insatiable bud. Exploring the florid folds of herself, feeling her body will itself _open_ , and finding her frenzy in that hurried rubbing. Choosing to believe, for a short-lived delight, that she could feel Kylo’s chest shoved against her back. That she could feel the full slab of his hips rutting against her own from behind, that she could feel his breath flaming over the nape of her neck, that it was _his_ fingers circling her into oblivion while he filled her.

She was curling her fingers around his hand before any further hallucinations could be disclosed, lingering where he’d already dipped one finger into her. Her body, always one step ahead, was already closing its heat around that digit, beckoning him deeper, but she drew his hand up instead. Glazing over folds that were waiting to petal open, she directed his touch higher, allowing him to find the same pulsing pinpoint his tongue had persisted for. Then back down, slipping through hot folds, and deeper between them, which caused her breath to catch and her hips to tilt, and then back up, tracing around her aching nub without yet rubbing over it. This instruction kept her opposite hand in a tighter and tighter grip around his captive cock, and the small of her back was braced tighter than that, pressing her forehead up against its anchor, scattering confessions.

_I like to run from you, but I like it more when you catch me. I like feeling like an animal. I like that I can’t make myself see stars unless I’m saying your name. I like imagining you making me see them over and over. I like when I dream that I can make you see them with me._

✦ ✦ ✦

Oh. _Oh_. She had thought of him too.

It was a revelation he hadn't expected, hadn't even dared to hope for. The dreams were one thing, an unconscious bridging of their minds through which his prurience could leach into her and stoke the embers he'd seen in her that day in the turbolift. But the images that were washing through their bond now were memories, wants, wishes. Hers. They were passionate, carnal, almost bestial, born of hot blood and spirit, far too intense to have sprung from the mind of a good, little Jedi. But she wasn't a good, little Jedi, just as he hadn't been able to be one either, because they were made of the same stuff, she and him. Trying to force people like them into neat, classifiable boxes, like Light and Dark, good and bad, peace and passion, had been the undoing of both the Jedi _and_ the Sith. He and Rey were going to be something else, something new, something better.

Kylo diligently memorized everything her mind shared with him, each gasp and rhythm and caress, storing it away, remembering. _I'll take you like that,_ he promised her silently, determined that neither one of them would have to rely on dreams or imagination any longer. _And every other way._

He was beginning to understand her body too and the way it reacted to him, that it was his duty to chase her pleasure. Teasing, but not too much. Giving, but only just enough. Taking whatever she would give. He played his part without hesitation, letting her guide his hand as he learned the rhythm of her desire, valiantly battling against the distraction her fist around his cock was proving to be. Her words in his head and the squeeze of her fingers swallowed him as wholly as the sumptuous heat that enveloped his fingers, and he found he wanted nothing more than to be the reason she saw constellations coursing before her eyes.

"I will show you the galaxy," he breathed into the space between their lips, and he meant it, in every way. "We'll see it together."

Her body seemed to call to him and every time he pressed his finger downwards to slip inside her, after swirling around that bright, little nub that had her Force signature singing in time with the dance of his fingertips, she took more and more of him, until he could feel her heat enveloping him to the knuckle. Her silky walls pressed in around him, clinging to him, and every time he pulled his hand away it felt like he tore a part of his soul with it. However, she wasn't the only one who could show ingenuity, and the next time her body welcomed him back again, his digit tarried longer than she'd shown him, flexing and stroking, while his thumb picked up the task of circling the bud of nerves at her peak in place of its erstwhile companion. Inside, she was all velvety softness and ridged walls, a brand new terrain for him to map. He pressed his hips forward, curling his finger inside her on instinct, to give _more_ , as he pressed his straining erection through her circling grasp and, for a moment, he thought he saw those stars her mind had whispered of.

✦ ✦ ✦

Opening the gates of her imagination was always a danger – a tremendous danger where it pertained to her forbidden relationship with Kylo Ren. It was especially dangerous at night, when she was alone, without the distraction of the blundering Resistance and its innumerable tasks to give her focus and structure. At night, in her own bunk, the distractions were different, and they flourished, and she hadn’t been under the impression that anyone else would ever know about them. They’d been safe to furtively allow into her head, and into her body by her own hand, because they would never manifest as anything more than visions. Fleeting sensations, too, but they would fade by morning and she could return to being whatever it was that she was meant to be. A makeshift pilot, a slipshod Jedi, an incorrigible, feral scavenger. Her guilty, nocturnal longings were her own.

They had been, until now, but they weren’t being challenged. She wasn’t being held in suspicion for having had them, and they weren’t being rejected on the grounds of – she wasn’t sure. Dignity? Pride? Rather, she was feeling the silvery sensation of a promise being laid into her mind, one that gathered all of the bawdy images she’d just exposed and neatly took them into _his_ mind, as if he intended to remember. That realization stuttered in her chest, heat washing over every inch of anxious skin, and something close to a whine slipped free as she curved her body up with the ghost of those sensations.

Not just ghosts, now, not anymore; just like the words weren’t only satin sliding over her thoughts. They were being spoken aloud, she could feel them breathed against her lips, and she tipped her head in just close enough to catch them there, gently teasing them off of his lips and into her own. “I want to see _every_ single star.”

She was beholding a radiant glimmer of _something_ with the attentive stroking of his fingers, that was true, distractingly so, and she both rejoiced in and regretted the fact that he learned so quickly. It meant the pleasure was smooth and seamless, and bright as two or three or ten moons. The thick pads of his fingers were made for gliding over her skin, for tracing and gripping and kneading, and now for sinking into her, for feeling her most searing heat. Searing but soft, and she could feel herself clasping his searching fingers, holding him there with a tight caress until he retreated.

Until he _didn’t_ retreat, suddenly, and the flexing of one long finger against her slick walls, curling up against places that had been ignorantly sleeping, was so unexpected that she squirmed against the pleasure it sent rolling exuberantly through her, breathing a startled moan. The orbiting rhythm of his thumb, testing the secrets she had just divulged, fluttered a whimsical heat precisely over the center of her, a maddening little bout of rapture that for a moment had her thighs parting to invite more. The chirp of a second moan lifting free was just as encouraging, but then she was dangerously close to stumbling into too many stars, bucking her hips away.

She had the overlapping sensation of glimpsing that same glow through Kylo’s mind, and she released his straining cock while also seizing his wrist, bringing his hand back up from where it was threatening to become too adept. Finding his eyes, she searched there with a purposeful hunger while shifting her small frame, bumping up and sliding to try and draw his weight fully down against her, lifting her hips to bring a wet friction over the length of him, fingers returning to his sides. Somehow, the map of the galaxy felt scant compared to everything she knew they could see, and she came back to her original wish with a new murmur.

“But you’re still the brightest thing I’ll ever see.”

✦ ✦ ✦

She ran. He chased.

She bucked her hips away from his touch. He followed.

Except she was tugging his hand away from her and letting go of his cock and he couldn't quite hold in the frustrated groan that escaped him at the loss. Again, a flicker of doubt crossed his mind. She had changed her mind. All the stars in the galaxy weren't enough to convince her to walk this road any further with him. But, no, there was purpose in her eyes when he looked down at her, and it dawned on him what she wanted. He understood her.

His damp fingers wrapped around her thigh, the pads digging into the supple flesh with uncontained, nervous exuberance, and he lifted her leg high to wrap around his waist as he slotted his groin against hers. The way she shifted, pressing up against him even as her nails raked him closer, had him groaning again for a completely different reason, and he could feel how slick she was as his erection slid back and forth through the length of her folds.

His head dipped and he pressed a sequence of hot kisses along the line of her jaw and to the soft place beneath her ear while he tried to steady his racing heart.

"If I give off any light at all," he murmured, his other hand snaking up behind her neck to tenderly cradle the base of her skull as he rocked his hips tantalizingly against hers. "It's the way a moon gives off light." He lifted his chin and placed a kiss on her mouth that was both soft and burning hot. "By reflecting the light of its sun."

When he pulled away again, his eyes met hers and he paused for a moment before shifting his hips backward. He felt the tip of his aching cock slide across her entrance and, when he pushed forward a fraction of an inch, she caught him there. His stomach flipped excitedly and he froze in place above her, trembling with the effort.

"Tell me again what you want, Rey," he breathed, shakily, needing to hear it, needing to believe it as this final barrier fell.

✦ ✦ ✦

He gave off a light all his own – she’d seen it the first time their fingertips had touched, and she hadn’t stopped believing in it since that moment. She might have been tempted to doubt it, to assume it would flicker out, and to piece together a wall to keep it from infiltrating through her head to torment her when they were apart. But it was still there, and it wasn’t a reflection. It belonged to him. It came from inside him.

Feeling her thigh sliding to fit around his waist, she gripped there with a quick flex of muscle, eyes falling shut at finally having the heft of his hips against her own. A quivering gasp followed as his lips drew over her jaw, coming to rest below her ear, and the heat of his breath there was wonderfully dizzying. It did make it difficult to make sense of his words for a moment, sliding her opposite knee up against his hips to keep his taunting, rocking motion against her. That suggestion of a deep, reaching rhythm, of a steady cadence, excited her own heart into a quicker pounding, palms sliding up and over his back.

He still wasn’t close enough, even as she could feel his cock nearly against her – it was _almost_ pushing past, _almost_ parting her, and she was grateful for the hand cupping the base of her skull, unsure what else could possibly be holding her together. She wanted to climb up onto his body, and she wanted him buried to the hilt between her thighs, a need that was so abrupt and so fierce that she was wracked with blinding desire, and she angled her hips to reach for him, with a heat that matched the wet hunger of her mouth.

She could feel the trembling of his arms, up to his shoulders, and she could hear it swimming through the words of his demand, bringing her eyes open heavily and feeling her own breath shaking. What she wanted? She had it, she had him in her arms, and one of her hands wandered its way up to his face, eyes flicking over every feature there as if she might miss it, from his dark eyes to his full lips to the falling black sweep of his hair, and she funneled her joy at having that, at having _him_ , from her mind into his, the star-sparkling exhilaration of it, because there were no words for what she wanted, how _much_ she wanted, how much she’d always wanted—

There was a brisk rapping on the door, and for a split second, she braced as if expecting the walls to come shattering down, _again_ , blinking through a haze that she suspected must be a dream. One of many, it had to be, but nothing was fading; she was very much present exactly where she had been, which was against rumpled black sheets, with a body poised in trembling anticipation above her own, and she couldn’t reconcile those two realities for a long moment – the commotion at the door and the achingly close breath they were sharing – but both seemed to be true, to somehow be coexisting.

The voice that climbed across the distance from the door’s comlink belonged to one of the officers with whom she’d shared a hostile introduction earlier, and if she was at all shocked, her aggression was greater. A growl hovered in the hollow of her throat, though the intrusion did keep her stationary, everything still except for her startled heart.

“Supreme Leader, we’re in need of you on the bridge.”


	9. Feel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Remind me,” he breathed against her mouth, his fingers slipping through her hair until they were brushing the side of her neck. “Where were we again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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If he hadn't been so tense with nervous anticipation, Kylo might actually have smiled at the warmth which flooded his brain when Rey looked up at him, and suddenly he didn't need to hear her say she wanted him. He _felt_ it, and the possessive streak inside him, which had needed her to make him believe that she didn't want to be anywhere else than here, with anyone else but him, began mewling contentedly instead.

He pressed his cheek into her wandering palm, then turned his head to kiss the skin there briefly, before remembering that there was something within his reach that he'd much rather have been kissing – something that kissed back! His lips were on their way down to her mouth, his hips on the verge of nudging him forward into some kind of heaven, when the metallic tap sounded on the doors to his quarters.

His head turned slowly, disbelievingly, towards the portal. Whoever was on the other side must have a death wish.

The comlink on the door's entry system crackled to life and Kylo listened in stunned silence as the bliss of the moment he'd been sharing with Rey was interrupted. It was the one thing he had ordered, under no circumstances, should happen. And it was happening.

“Supreme Leader, we’re in need of you on the bridge. There’s a small system within range that we can easily take, but there’s some disagreement about how we ought to go about doing that. If you don’t mind. We need to move quickly.”

Rage ripped through him like wildfire, spurred on by the darkness of Rey’s siphoned pain which still lingered in his veins, and he flung out one hand, listening with a sense of retribution being satisfied as the comlink went dead and the thud of an unconscious body hitting ceramisteel reverberated through the floor. Still, he knew that the issue wouldn't be silenced as easily as his officer had been. For a subordinate to subvert his express orders, the command must have come from the most senior officer on the ship.

With a growl of resigned fury, Kylo shifted back onto his knees, sliding down Rey's body until his forehead was resting against her stomach, his cock dejectedly bobbing against his own. Without lifting his head, he reached out through the Force for his personal comlink. It sailed into his waiting hand and he brought it close to his lips, over Rey's undulating ribs.

"Hux," he barked, knowing full well who the command to interrupt him had come from. It reeked of the red-headed weasel's particular brand of insubordination. "We are the First Order, _not_ a band of marauding pirates. _If_ you have a good reason for suggesting this system be annexed, you can submit it in the normal way, at the Supreme Council. Until then, I'm not to be interrupted again. Am I understood?" His voice had lowered to little more than an irate snarl and he didn't wait for a reply before adding, "And in the meantime, remove and demote whichever moof-milker it is lying unconscious outside my door, and thank your lucky stars it's not you."

The comlink clattered away across the floor, disabled.

Kylo's hands curled around either side of Rey's ribcage as he sighed out a deep breath against her skin. Trust Hux to ruin the moment from the other end of the ship.

✦ ✦ ✦

She wasn’t quick enough to intervene: the fingers of one hand lifted a split second too late to catch the hand that Kylo shot out to disable – well, something, or someone – and she kept her lips pressed together at the sounds that followed. The garbled crackling of the comlink, solid weight soundly hitting solid ceramisteel, and then silence. Glancing at the door, and then pivoting her gaze back to Kylo’s face, she kept her own silence for a moment, studying his irate features with a glint of curiosity.

A soft huff of a breath left her as his weight came away, and she felt the presence of his dark energy as a lingering heat, the briefly searing air left behind a thruster, signifying a recent launch. It riffled over her awareness, was not an entirely unpleasant sting, was not entirely unfamiliar at all, and she let her hands follow his shoulders as he dropped down along her body. The weight of his forehead resting against her stomach was strange and new, but also warm, and she marveled at the tide of breath moving through her body as it lifted and lowered his head, a buoy, and she slowly threaded her fingers through the length of his hair.

While listening quietly to the bitter reprimand being delivered, of course, her thoughts naturally turning over what system his officers had located, and what they hoped to do with it. Subdue it, as any autocratic military would, and coerce loyalty to the First Order; a vision of the red-haired general came to mind, his eyes wild with the furor of domination and destruction, lusting after the power of the sun. She couldn’t help a soft snort.

She also couldn’t help but flinch lightly as the comlink was sent clattering in abrupt dismissal across the floor, glancing after it and breathing in deeply as she felt wide hands on either side of her ribcage. Spreading her ribs against his palms, she slid her own hands through his thick mane of hair, thinking aloud as she brought her eyes back up.

“I want to sit in on the Supreme Council,” she decided, invested now in the fate of whichever unassuming system Hux had unearthed, and needing to know, beyond that, the functioning behind the First Order’s decision-making. As the personal prisoner of the Supreme Leader, she couldn’t imagine anyone taking issue, not out loud, especially if his outward design was to make her his ‘pet’. A farce for outside eyes, perhaps, but that didn’t carry over into his personal quarters. Especially not now with the comlinks thoroughly disabled, and she used the hands in his hair to begin tugging him back up, wriggling and nudging her weight forward as she did so to try and roll him onto his back.

There was another detail she couldn’t allow to pass, and one that she couldn’t keep from leaving traces of an amused smile at the corners of her lips, seeking out darker eyes as she dared to point it out.

“Moof-milker? Have you ever even _seen_ a moof?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo lifted his chin to look up at her, surprised at her request to sit on the Supreme Council. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d offered her the chance to _form_ the Supreme Council with him, as his co-ruler. He’d wanted her at his side to help him shape the galaxy into something better than the place that had created and abandoned both of them. He’d wanted her to help define the shape of his rule, not as an adversary or a resistant but as a collaborator, a confidente, a lover... a partner in all things.

But that was an old wound and he had no business poking it, not whilst she was with him in his bed, asking him to open his world to her, asking to join him. He gave a small nod of assent; he didn’t know exactly how he was going to justify bringing his prisoner along to council meetings - it might have to be a process - but he’d figure it out. If the way Rey was wriggling beneath him was any indication, he’d have a good incentive.

He stretched back up the bed as she tugged him to her, letting her roll him onto his back, where he flopped down to gaze up at her.

Her question caught him off guard and a pang of something painful rippled through him as he realized what he’d said and where he’d learned it. It colored his expression for a split second before he was able to focus his mind on the fact that Rey was being playful and smiling that amused little smile just for him. It was both beautifully enchanting and heart-stoppingly arousing. He reached for her hips as his own mouth softened, his eyebrows rising in mock-challenge.

“No. Have you?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Her hands found his torso as she slid to situate herself neatly above his hips, but the petulant flutterings of his consciousness made her mind betray her with an unbidden backstep, all the way to Snoke’s throne room, and a gloved hand being extended. She chased her thoughts away from it, and instead brought her gaze to the hands that were finding her hips, letting herself rest a little more fully where she sat with his approval.

She had not, in fact, seen a moof, but she watched as the phrase registered across his face in a new way. A way they both understood, and she acknowledged it before it passed. 

“No,” she admitted, quickly adding, “but I’ve seen a thala-syren being milked, and I don’t think it’s something you’d bring to mind if you knew any better.” She would never willingly remember that unappetizing scene, but it seemed preferable, under the circumstances, to courting the dark places his thoughts seemed dangerously close to straying into. 

She brought her hands up to begin absentmindedly undoing her bottom bun. The hair that had been rolled up within it was glad to fall free, as was the layer above it, as the second bun was released. Her nimble fingers found the top and final arrangement, letting chestnut hair spill down to her shoulders, past her shoulders, reaching beyond her collarbones, long enough now to brush the freckled skin of her breasts.

Bringing her hands back down to rest against Kylo’s torso, she let her gaze meander its way up his chest, returning to his face, and holding there. An adjustment of her hips centered her, keeping his cock pinned between them, and she arched her own brows as she closed her thighs in against his hips.

“What other insults do they use in the First Order?” She’d learned some colorful slang from rowdy x-wing pilots and junkyard prowlers, but there was always room for new and useful additions in her inquisitive vocabulary.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo watched in wonder as she sat astride him, casually untying her hair and talking about thala-syrens, and it occurred to him, not for the first time, that she was wholly, beautifully unique. There was no one else quite like Rey in the whole galaxy. She was a no one from a god- and man-forsaken dustball of a planet in the Western Reaches, who sat comfortably with the Supreme Leader of the First Order between her thighs, calmly recounting tales of mythical creatures, while she’d never – unless his intelligence network was more severely lacking than he’d thought – even seen some of the Core Worlds. He felt the corners of his mouth tugging upwards slightly into the beginnings of an unpracticed smile as his hands slid up her hips.

“Do you really imagine I sit around trading cuss words with the stormtroopers?” he muttered, spreading his fingers wide so his two thumbs could brush the gentle curves at the undersides of her breasts.

His cock was pinioned between his stomach and her deliciously warm, slick center, and he shifted his hips beneath her to slide her against it and pitch her forward toward his chest. He was ready to catch her and quickly wrapped one thick arm around her while his other hand came up to run through the newly loosened lengths of her glossy, brown hair.

“I like this,” he murmured, watching in fascination as the silky strands slipped through his fingers before he pushed them back away from her face so he could lean up and kiss her. There were still painful, complicated, messy things lurking outside of this room that they’d need to deal with at some point but, for right now, the only thing Kylo wanted to concentrate on was Rey. The rest could wait. It could wait, and they would figure it all out together. First, though...

“Remind me,” he breathed against her mouth, his fingers slipping through her hair until they were brushing the side of her neck. “Where were we again?”

✦ ✦ ✦

It took a great deal of effort, in fact, to imagine him sitting around with anyone, trading any kind of words at all. Let alone his own stormtroopers, and let alone words that served no functional purpose other than spicing up the usual assortment. To better harangue someone, usually, and it was far easier to imagine that the only crude insults he knew had come from someone spontaneous and direct and self-assured. Someone like Han Solo, from whom she had originally heard the snub – rightly attributed to the fool who had installed the compressor on the Falcon’s hyperdrive – and so it seemed almost natural that she should hear it from Kylo. A fact that she’d quickly chosen to find a glint of levity in, even with the horrific weight of the unchangeable past between them, and she kept her gaze on his face long enough to spot what looked like the faint outline of a smile, not able to keep her own lips from mirroring it right back.

“I’ll learn some for you,” she resolved, a harmless venture that she had to pause and question the likelihood of. Surely she wouldn’t be held captive indefinitely in the Supreme Leader’s quarters? She couldn’t reasonably expect to roam unsupervised, or perhaps even to interact with anyone at will, but that was a question whose answer she was sure would become apparent soon enough. As things stood, there was nowhere she would rather be but locked inside the Supreme Leader’s quarters, with the Supreme Leader locked in with her.

Locked between her thighs, somehow, at her mercy, a fact that seemed to have skimmed beneath her conscious notice while she undid her hair, but she was adequately reminded as his hips moved beneath her. First to slide her flush along the length of him, earning a spirited murmur, and then she found herself against his chest. With a thick hand brushing through the hair she’d just let down, and the warmth that flooded through her was more insistent than the pull between moon and sea. She wanted, needed, to be pressed back in against him, and she was grateful to feel his mouth returning to her own, only needing to lean halfway in before he met her there.

Where were they – a question that her body could answer, and from a new, advantageous position. He _had_ been looming above her, artfully moving his hips in such a way that he painted taunting, tantalizing strokes between her anxious thighs. He’d been asking her what she wanted, and she’d begun to answer, but now she had him pinned beneath her. A place she decided she rather enjoyed him being, especially now, sliding her own hands up to find the sides of his neck, and his jaw, and the space beneath his ears, speaking warmly against his mouth as she held him there.

“You _were_ on top,” and now he was usurped, and she parted her lips to mingle their breath and greet his tongue, “and you _were_ asking me what I wanted,” and it was a question with a multitude of star-speckled answers, curving her hips to brush her slick, pulsing heat over the head of his cock, sinking her tongue into his mouth while sinking her hips down, taking him just between her folds and then shifting back up.

“But now I’m on top,” and now there was nothing between them, and they weren’t cramped in the impossibly small cockpit of his TIE, although that wasn’t a fantasy she had shelved. Now there was no rearranging to wrestle out of their clothing, and she slid against the arm at her back to lift her hips, placing her smoldering center against him, not able to keep her fingers out of his hair for long while she quivered under the lavishing touch that reached the side of her neck.

“And I want to hear what you want.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Sitting on the Supreme Council at his side, learning the bad language of the First Order... it was the stuff Kylo's dreams had been made of: Rey integrating herself into his world, Rey _staying_. He was sure his mind would supply him with a thousand reasons why this had to be too good to be true, when it was at leisure and no longer preoccupied with the absolute vision of a woman that was presently sitting atop his hips, but he couldn't bring himself to let them in at the moment. If she was using him or tricking him or plotting against him— Well, he would be her willing fool. He was already a traitor for fraternizing with a member of the Resistance. If anyone learned of their deception, he would be executed alongside Rey, with his own laws cited as justification. If she was going to be his downfall, at least he would die with the sweet, intoxicating taste of her on his lips and the enduring memory of what she felt like on his cock. In fact, the First Order could have been burning down around him as he lay there and he wasn't sure it would have been enough to draw him out from between her legs.

His mouth slanted hungrily against hers as he rolled his skull between her fingers, loving the feel of her hands in his hair almost as much as he enjoyed threading his through hers. Her fingertips drew sparks across his scalp, both the skin and his thoughts beneath tingling in response to her touch. Her hips undulated, sliding her teasingly against his erection, over his tip, beckoning him between her folds then fleeing again before he could spear up into her, and he felt his hand flatten instinctively, desperately, against the small of her back as he fought off the longing to press her _down_. He had never felt the need to be _inside_ someone else before, but he felt it now, as primal and urgent as the need to breathe. It was like his body was begging to become part of hers; their minds had already been bridged, and now this was their final hurdle to cross before they could ascend to some higher plane.

When he drew away from her lips, his breath was coming quick and shallow, his chest trembling with every inhale. He let his head fall back against the pillow as he looked up at her, lifting the thumb of the hand at her neck to run along the line of her jaw.

What did he want?

That was easy.

"Just you."

✦ ✦ ✦

His answer was as simple as her own, and she wasn’t sure what she was expecting to hear, but those two words dropped a chill down her spine that she recognized from the first time he’d said them. It felt as true now as it had then – no surroundings, no sense of where they stood in the larger scheme of things; just each other. The same flicker of danger was there, too, but now it was woven with a longing that had only intensified the longer she’d stayed. It was intensifying every moment that her skin was pressed against his body, and the longer she was allowed to thread her fingers through his hair or explore his mouth.

With how tightly bound their minds were, it felt like a crime that their bodies had been kept so long apart. There was nothing left standing in the way, the obstacles had been cleared, and there was no restraint she could have summoned to keep her from melting closer, and closer. Into the mouth that she was claiming, as if the ghost of the words he’d spoken through the comlink needed to be chased out and replaced with things that were warmer, and more breathless. Until there weren’t any words left at all, and she matched his quick, shallow breath with her own, heart thumping as she felt the encouraging pressure at the small of her back. It _was_ dangerous, some sensible voice in the back of her head wanted to remind her: she was a prisoner, even if he had promised her that she was more.

She was trapped on a First Order flagship, and she was out of communication with the Resistance, and would be for some unforeseen amount of time. All of those concerns were wisps of smoke fleeing the fire of what she felt beneath her hands, and against her lips – against his body, she felt more secure than she ever had in a fighter, or in the protection of any hidden base. She’d never felt as if she belonged right where she was, and it was only in dreams that she’d felt such a furious desire to pull another body in against her own, to wrap herself around him and take him inside her.

But she was feeling it now, and she found his eyes once he had dropped his head back. Her gaze then fell along the scar he wore, tracing down to his lips, over his scattered moles, and then back up. _Just you_ – it felt like the only reassurance she’d needed to hear, that she’d ever needed to hear, and she leaned in to place a kiss against his lips before carefully sitting herself up. For the purpose of regarding where she sat and where she needed to align herself, mainly, brushing back stray hair before lifting her hips to rest her center against his tip. Linking her gaze with darker eyes, she drew in her own trembling inhale, fanned her fingers against his torso, and slowly began easing herself down. Down past the point of teasingly brushing skin over skin, and down past the point of suggestion. Down to where heat became engulfing pressure, a rush of tingling pressure that rippled up through her core, and she felt her thighs clamp against his hips as she pushed past it.

It was more than what her guilty dreams had led her to believe – her body couldn’t have known what the answer to its deepest, most desperate question would feel like. It was relief, a momentary reprieve as her throbbing heat, at last, had something to tightly grip, stroking her way down the length of him until he was sheathed. Then it was a new question, a new demand as her body accepted the shape and heat of him within her, and that impossible sensation spurred an entirely new need. Pressing her palms against the hard muscle of his abdomen, a small shift served to flutter bright, foreign pleasure along the walls that now held him, a helpless moan whispering free as she strived to hold his gaze.

“Oh, Kylo.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo could feel his heart beating in his throat as he watched Rey straighten above him, his hand slipping down from her neck as she moved, fingertips trailing across her breast, until he could curl it around her hip instead, where it was joined by its pair to steady her (or perhaps to steady himself). He could feel her shifting, lifting, positioning herself over him, and he was tempted to drop his chin and watch the moment when he disappeared inside of her, but her eyes kept his gaze locked on hers and it meant that he was able to observe the devastatingly beautiful expression which formed on her face as she lowered herself down onto him. His own lips fell apart around a silent, breathless gasp; it felt like she had robbed him of air and replaced it with the warmth of her body.

The sensation was like nothing Kylo had felt in his life before: hot and wet and soft, deep and vital. _Tight_. Tighter than her fist had been, and gripping him, like her body instinctively recognized him as _hers_.

He felt her thighs press hard against his sides, his fingers clinging just as desperately to the flesh at her hips as he scrabbled for a center of gravity, and there was a moment when he thought she might stop, when her mind slipped against his and he felt, for a second, the unfamiliarity of having him inside her. He felt it from her perspective – the invaded – but then she was pushing past it, his brave, determined scavenger, and seating herself flush against him. The next time he felt her thoughts, there was nothing but wonder, the like of which matched seamlessly with his own.

Her hands were splayed against his stomach, and he held himself completely still as he waited for her to be ready. Ready for what? His body knew, and he rolled his hips slightly beneath her as she shifted above. Immediately, sparks rushed through him, added to by the sound of his name falling from her lips in pleasure, and he let out a low groan of his own in answer as he peered blissfully up at her through heavy-lidded eyes.

“You feel—“ he began, rolling his hips again to check the sensation. He was promptly rendered incapable of speech. Instead, he pressed every compliment he could think of into her mind, along with the shape of the pleasure he felt. His hands ran up her sides then back down again in compensation for his silence, but he stayed otherwise motionless save for the slight twitch and shift of his hips, just to remind himself that she was real and she was really there. For some reason, it felt important to let her lead him in this and, as such, as he employed every bit of restraint he possessed not to buck up into her like he wanted to, he waited instead for her to find her own pace.

✦ ✦ ✦

With her heart beating so hard that it was not only jarring her ribs but also making her breath shake, Rey was grateful to have Kylo’s dark eyes to hold onto. And his torso under her hands, and she knew she shouldn’t be afraid; she’d scaled and clung to starships on Jakku more times than she could count.

But she had never clung to anything the way she felt her body clinging to Kylo, and a thought minnowed from his mind into her own: her body recognized him as hers. It did. She could feel it in the way their hips were finally aligned, as precise as stars. Of course, she’d never known the stars as precise: they were a glittering mess. If there was order among them, she couldn’t decipher it. She wasn’t sure she would ever want to, and the things she didn’t know vastly outweighed those she did. But if everything else in her life was uncertain, she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was now recovering something that belonged to her. A body that had been made to fit like this with her own, even if she was at a loss as to what _this_ was.

It was two hands gripping her by the hips, and she could feel the sweet sting of his fingers digging into skin that was going to bloom into bruises. He was _still_ , like smooth water, and she could feel the tension of his caution, blinking her eyes to focus through her stunned wonder back onto his face. Maybe it was bliss in his gaze, but she felt a hitch of fright, as she had earlier, when he spoke. _You feel—_ what? What if she felt nothing like what he had imagined? What if, for him, they were not aligned as precisely as stars? What if…

But then her mind was being lathered in a close, heady wave of fondness, searingly bright swathes of color that were made of his pleasure, and she caught a sudden breath at the impact of it, eyes fluttering shut. Curling her fingers into his skin, she let a flick of motion in the small of her back drop down to swim through her hips, riding the roll of his hips beneath her. There was another glide of slick friction, of feeling her body slowly find its way into a grip that was tailored to him, seizing and stroking. Fire followed his fingers up her sides, suffusing every inch of her skin in a hot chill, and she opened her eyes again to find the harbor of his face.

If he was calm water, then she could feel the energy roiling underneath, the restrained tide. He was waiting for her to lead, but she didn’t need to. She couldn’t – she only knew the curious whims of her desire, carefully rocking her hips to follow Kylo’s. That motion nudged him deeper, and dragged him against the heat that was squeezing him so tightly as she rode the subtle wave back down. Somehow, having him enveloped within her left her body pounding to have him closer, the urgency answered but also heightened, and she didn’t want him to follow her; she wanted him beside her. She wanted him to discover her waves as she was discovering his. Lifting one of her hands to capture the fingers at her side, she guided them over her ribs, back up to the curve of her breast, wanting to feel his exploratory hand there again.

She wasn’t going to break – she’d clambered through too many dark and broken places to be afraid that she couldn’t find her way forward. She wasn’t forced now, though, to make her hidden discoveries alone, and the sigh that escaped her slipped into a higher note, opening her mind to rain down praises into Kylo’s. How it delighted her to watch his face soften with wordless pleasure; how she loved to feel his approving groans rumble up from deep in his chest; how she wanted to ride the length of him deeper, how she wanted him to feel that he was hers and she was his, how she would trade in every ration to have him looking up at her like she was a new moon.

“Be with me,” she breathed back, wanting him with her, finding her like she was finding him. Sliding her hips forward, she felt her fingers slipping from the hand she’d brought to her breast, following his arm and holding on there as she dared closer. There was a motion that her hips wanted to find, fluid and untrained, but she let herself begin to look for it, leaving her mind unlocked and open, wanting her thoughts as full of him as the hollow of her hips.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo dutifully let his hands be guided up to Rey's breasts, where the broad pads of his fingers were immediately drawn to the taut peaks of her nipples – too pink and ripe and enticing for him not to touch. He rolled them and smoothed them and, as he did, he felt her undulating against him again, responding to the nudge of his hips. It was a small, uncertain movement but one that stirred something old and deep and primal inside him, a longing he hadn't known he'd been capable of until Rey had started to grace his dreams all those months ago, a longing that now demanded to be fulfilled.

And a longing Rey understood too. He realized, as he lay there beneath her, gazing speechlessly up at her, that the echos he heard in his mind, so close to his own thoughts on her, were actually Rey's wordless encouragement – her delight and approval, her longing to possess and be possessed, her need for _more._

_Be with me_ , he heard her say (whether out loud or into his head, he wasn't sure), but she hadn't needed to. He was already there, his hands forsaking their adoration of her breasts to slip around her and pull her gently forwards until she was wrapped up in him, lying along the length of his broad chest, and he could tilt his hips upward to fill her on her down stroke.

His lips found her neck, her jaw, her cheek, her eyes, her nose, her mouth, any part of her he could reach, as his hands spread across her back, one hand finding its way up to curl around the back of her neck while the other moved to cup her delectable, round ass cheek. His heels found purchase against the mattress as he drew his knees up slightly, and then it was only a simple matter of rolling his hips against her, as she rocked back against him, to initiate that breath-taking slide that had his heart and his cock quivering in ecstasy. He felt his eyes roll back in his head at the feel of it, of _her_ , grasping and squeezing and welcoming him deep inside with every tentative stroke, and he knew that, yes, this was what she had needed, because it was what he had needed too.

✦ ✦ ✦

It had all been _just skin_ , before she’d realized the excitement that could be stirred to life by simply having his fingers spanning over her. It had been _just skin_ before she’d felt the overwhelming need to taste him, and had discovered that skin had a flavor, and that it was rich and wildly addicting. A truth she’d faced the moment he’d kissed her, and she’d let her tongue find its partner in a heat that she hadn’t imagined could be shared in such a way before.

It was more than just skin now, and she only wished she could feel his whole body flush against her while she slid against his hips, experimenting with easing herself up the length of him, and then gliding back down. She could squeeze her thighs in tighter, binding herself to his body as closely as she could feel their minds writhing against one another, and she could slip her legs further apart, bringing him deeper in a way that flooded disbelief across her face. And then astonishment, and then pleasure, lips parted around words that weren’t there, hot breath taking their place instead.

Then her wish was being granted, and she _was_ feeling herself against the length of his body, wrapped against his chest. She could feel his hands covering the tight muscle of her back, and the curve of her ribs where they reached around to her spine, and she trembled with the understanding that he could hold so much of her body in his palms.

An understanding that only had her shifting hungrily against him for more of that touch, but he was already answering that craving too, one hand fitting against the back of her neck while the other dropped to her ass, which she held tight as she rode him. A new way to ride him, as she felt his knees rising and his hips tilting, heaving a pleased sigh at the friction he pushed against her and that she could push back against, squirming as her body rippled around him. A hot, restless rippling, from her skin down to the soft, wet places that yearned to feel more of him, to pulse more fervently against him.

And there were his lips, everywhere, from her throat to her eyelashes and every flushed spot in between, an adoration she didn’t hesitate to return, only stuttering in her efforts when the texture of his cock slid up against the unexplored texture of something inside her, breath coming quicker as she tried to duplicate those motions and the plumes of pleasure they sent unfurling through her. Dreams were no preparation for how it felt to have him moving against her, to _feel_ the strength of his body and the way her own drove in closer against it, hands sliding up the sides of his neck to his jaws. Her mouth found his plush bottom lip, where an eager kiss sharpened into a quick nip as she pushed down against his hips, finding a hard friction that she wanted to savor, clamping around his hips like he was her favorite fathier and she was determined to speak to his body with her own.

They _could_ communicate in that way, she could feel it, but she was also guilty of shameless curiosity and exuberance, speaking breathlessly aloud as she slid in against him. From an inquisitive, rotating advance of her hips up to her chest, pressed warmly against the much broader one beneath her, she was hungry to be as entangled as the galaxy would allow, as her dreams had suggested they could be. “I want to see you above me. Will you? I want to feel you like that.”

✦ ✦ ✦

In the months since Rey had left him, Kylo had spent days at a time researching the Force Bond they shared. He had pored over ancient manuscripts, reading of centuries-old prophecies and long lost Sith legends, learning about mythical pairings who had defied all odds and bent time and space to their will, obsessed with understanding the thread which connected them.

To a more base end, he had flicked through countless holoporn recordings, subconsciously lingering on images of women with athletic bodies, small tits, and sensually curvaceous hips, trying to understand the desires Rey had awoken in him, studying the way humans sought to join their bodies.

He'd believed he had given himself a thorough understanding surrounding the concept of two beings becoming one, mentally and physically.

He had been wrong.

Being inside Rey like this, their minds and their bodies joined, with him riding on the crest of her waves of pleasure, as she chased the sensations he caused in her, their forms moving as one, reactive and instinctive, was something he never could have foreseen. And yet, it reminded him oddly of fighting – dancing around each other, anticipating each other's every move and letting their bodies decide how to respond. Kylo was no stranger to life or death stakes when 'sabers were drawn, and his union with Rey felt no less intense than the time when they'd fought for their lives, back to back, their Bond wide open and their trust placed unquestioningly in the other's hands. It felt inevitable. It felt _right_.

Even when he felt her teeth catching at his lower lip, the frisson of pain that rippled through him only fanned the flames of his desire, drawing him ever closer to those constellations he'd briefly glimpsed beneath her hand. Pain had always been instructive in his life, shaping, guiding, and he let it guide him now, responding with a searing kiss of his own, crushing his hurt into her, only to soothe it away with the healing caress of his tongue.

"Yes," he breathed without hesitation when Rey asked to have him above her, and he raised one foot against the mattress to seamlessly roll them over as one, sinking into her to the hilt as he settled between her legs. His hair fell around them in black, satin waves, creating a curtain between them and the rest of the world, and he returned his mouth to hers, even as he went about learning the possibilities of this new position – the way he was able to lift her leg against his side, let his fevered fingers run the length of her thigh, let his cock sink deeper into unfathomed leagues of bliss. She felt so small beneath him, but strong and powerful nonetheless, as though her will commanded his hips as they fell into a new, urgent rhythm. He drove into her again and again and again, until starlight began to twinkle at the outermost fields of his vision.

"Tell me... what to do," he huffed out, his brows drawn tightly together, "to make you see stars."

✦ ✦ ✦

For as wonderfully fulfilling as it felt to have him beneath her, as thrilling as it was to watch every expression that crossed his face, and to claim responsibility for it, she was possessed by the just as demanding need to give herself to him. Instead of holding herself tight against his hips, to lay back and open herself to him, to invite him in as close against her as her body would allow. A blaster fitting into its holster, a blade sinking into the only sheath that fit it; there were spaces within her clamoring to be filled, and she wanted to endure the full force of his weight shoved against her as he filled them.

Finding her request answered, and silently appreciating that there wasn't a single one he had yet questioned, she let herself be swept over in the motion of his body overtaking her own. Smoothly but solidly, and she felt her back waste no time in arching up against his heavier frame. Instances of raw, physical pleasure were few and far between – on Jakku, it had been the luxury of eating, for the most part. One of the single joys her tongue knew, and there was the glimmer of adrenaline in her blood when danger snuck up on her. There was the pleasing burn of physical exhaustion, feeling her slim muscles devoted to the task of survival, and in leaving Jakku, there was the rush of flight. There was the excitement of the chase, which had gradually morphed into an entirely novel longing. There was the unspeakable, growing desire to be _caught_ , although she'd never known the words to describe how. There was the brief indulgence of sneakily pursuing that desire with her own fingers, but it was never like this. Nothing had ever been like this.

Now she _could_ open her thighs to more than a ghost, and she could feel him between them when she did, burying himself into her heat more deeply than she would've thought possible. Right up to the hilt, as she'd been longing for, curling the thigh he'd lifted around his waist to keep him there. Her heart wasn't sure what to do with that plunge of delight, thundering in alarm and then in glee, dropping her head back with the desire that went coursing up her body. She wanted to be tight around him but also open, beseechingly open, and it was the same furious tension as when they fought. Wanting to feel her ‘saber sing as she crashed it against red plasma, wanting to fall into the familiar, dangerous duet they formed together, letting her ecstatic pulse guide her, closer and then away.

It was guiding her now, and a flare of anticipation drew up over her torso, a soft, luxuriating cry sliding free as the length of him rubbed up against her from this new position. Deeper, naturally, and so some feisty impulse compelled her to leverage her thighs against him to push him back out, straining to keep him there, and then allowing him to sink rapidly back in. A rhythm that he seemed to find quite naturally on his own, and she raked her nails up over the swells of his sides, urging his weight against her with each driving push, breath catching on a rising crescendo of pleading moans. But feeling him was a joy, and when was joy ever supposed to be kept quiet?

And then - tell him what to _do_? He was already doing it, he was already doing more than her imagination had been able to console her with, but that didn't mean her body couldn't seek more. She could already see stars, a dazzling trail of them, slowly circling in on her vision, and the feel of his dark hair falling around them and his heart beating and his thick fingers on her was enough to summon all the stars she knew. There was only one thing she wanted, breathing that plea against his lips. 

"Catch me," now, while they were alone to do so, while she could safely be caught, with his huge hands and his hot tongue and his meaty cock and his delicious mind, and she dragged him closer, only wanting to see stars at all if he was right there with her. "Say my name. Say it until _you_ see stars."

✦ ✦ ✦

Her requests were simple – a blessing to his bliss-addled mind – and ones that he could easily deliver.

Catch her; his arms were already around her, the hand at her thigh meandering down to the crease of her hip then back up her body until his fingers could play through her hair and his biceps could bracket her tightly between his chest and the mattress. He would always be there to catch her, for as long as there was breath in his body. His arms, his strength, his support, were hers.

Say her name until he could see stars; her name was the only thing that made sense anymore and he sighed it into her mouth and the soft skin at her throat, let it pour into the hollow between her collarbones and vibrate against the flushed skin of her sternum.

“Rey. Rey, Rey, _Rey_.”

He spoke her name like a litany, his own personal prayer, the sound of his salvation.

He was close. He could feel his control fraying around the edges as light threatened to flood his mind and body. He could feel sweat beading at his brow and across his chest, his body trembling above her, even as he continued to thrust deep into her in relentless pursuit of those mellifluous moans of joy he was making fall from her lips.

“Rey,” he rumbled, nuzzling his face into the junction between her shoulder and her neck and letting his teeth lightly graze the sensitive skin there.

“Oh, Rey,” he groaned, his lips trailing up the slender column of her throat to find her jaw as his hips snapped against her in desperation.

“Rey,” he murmured into her mouth, letting her taste his unquantifiable passion as galaxies began to swirl across his vision and through his mind.

“ _My_ Rey,” he choked, as the final threads of his restraint slipped away from him. Every nerve ending in his body caught light at once and white-hot flames of pleasure ripped through him; it was like being engulfed by a star, not _seeing_ one. He was consumed. His hips stuttered slightly before surging tight against her, filling her with his cock, his rapture pouring over into her consciousness even as his seed spilled deep inside her. “My Rey,” he breathed again. “My sun. My Light.”

✦ ✦ ✦

The sound of her own name was forgettable; at least it was when she spoke it. Easy to dismiss, unattached to anything, just like the desert she had come from. It could be picked up and blown away. Except now something was different, and she wasn’t sure what she had expected to hear. There was no logic leashed to anything she was feeling. It was impulse, instinct and hunger; she wanted to hear him speak her name, and so she hadn’t hesitated to ask. There was no reason _why_ , and there was no reason it should sound any different slipping from his lips. But it did, it always had, and it hunted the same feral chill through her that it had the first time she’d heard him say it. Like he was speaking not _at_ her but into her, soul to soul, and if she’d been brushing up against joy before, she was no longer sure what to call what she had found now. It touched her from her skin down to the marrow of her bones, like water washing over her for the first time, like she was finally rinsed clean.

He was speaking it to her mouth and to her throat, to her collarbones and her sternum, and he was speaking it like it meant something.

There was light pulsing at the seams of his consciousness, and she could feel it freely unthreading her own, too. The sweat quivering at his chest met the sweat that was burning against her own, and she could feel it at her brow, along her hairline, as if the fire really was shared. The prick of his teeth at her shoulder spurred her body up, and the rhythm of his hips against her own was crowding luminous stars across her vision. And through her blood, she could feel stars racing there; she could hear them in every one of his rumbles and sighs, and she could taste them when he returned to her mouth, breathless in her pleasure.

Then she was tasting not only stars, but his cascading pleasure as it crashed from his mind into hers, and stars became galaxies. She brought her hands away from his back, where her nails were leaving passionate streaks, up to find his face instead, through the startlingly soft curtain of his hair. Sliding her thighs around his waist, she melted into a whimper as he claimed her name just as he was claiming her body.

She didn’t belong to anyone, and she didn’t belong anywhere – not until her loneliness had been bridged to Kylo’s, and then she’d known. She’d felt it, as deeply as she’d felt her years-long hunger, and she’d denied it, and she’d fought it, and she could fight it no longer, not when they were finally alone. But she’d never _heard_ it, not the way she was hearing it now, not as her becoming his. She’d never been so securely held, between his powerful arms and his pounding heart, pushing their bodies tighter while the white light radiating through him pierced through her, too; energy and fire and maybe one great star, not many.

A light, a sun, and a bright cry left her at the vision of that rapture. His rapture, their rapture, and the wave that he brought her cresting over was one she could never find alone. It was one she would never know without his body heavy and breathing against her own, without his arms around her or him _inside_ her, and the name that flew from her was not the one she had become accustomed to saying. It wasn’t the one she used to remind herself who she was dealing with, the one that would keep her one step distant from the truth. Now there was nothing but the truth, that elysian light that belonged to one person alone, and there was no keeping it from splitting every seam in her mind.

“Ben,” she gasped against his mouth, her fingers sliding against his face as her body embraced everything he was giving her, seeing her own Light, and her own sun, bracing against a second wave of pleasure that tumbled after the first, carrying his name with it in desperate wonder. “Oh, _Ben_.”

Once tasted, it was difficult to stop saying it. The quivering in her fingers betrayed the fact that she knew who she was with, and she opened her eyes to let the warmth of that realization soar between them just as fully as the glowing pleasure they’d created.

When she spoke his name, his true name, it was a discovery, whispering adoration, something treasured.

“Ben. _My_ Ben. You’re so bright.”

✦ ✦ ✦

The name Ben Solo was outlawed under the First Order. It was one of the first laws Kylo had ratified upon his ascension to Supreme Leader, fuelled by the hatred that had sustained him in the long weeks following the embarrassment which was Crait. He had authorized the imprisonment of any person who so dared to utter it. And yet...

To hear the name on Rey's lips, spoken with such care and wonder, as he felt the cresting tide of her pleasure and understood that he had been the one to unmoor her, somehow it didn't remind him of the scared, foolish, weak boy he had been. Instead, she spoke directly to the man he was now, the man who was wrapped around her, his mind threaded with hers, his cock pulsing blissfully inside her while her fingers trembled against his face.

The cheek beneath her touch was still marred. The hands grasping her to him were still stained with blood. He was still the same man who had ignited red plasma through his father's chest – nothing could turn back time – but he was different too. Being with Rey, finding pleasure in her pleasure and letting her soft, velvety cunt coax him into a nexus of starlight, seemed to have cracked him wide open and let light and warmth and joy flood into all the gloomy, fetid parts of his soul where his hate and anger and jealousy bred. The Darkness was still there – it was a part of him: something about him that Skywalker had never been able to reconcile himself to – but it felt like it had less of a grip on him. It had relinquished some of its hold to Rey, and Kylo found he was okay with that. He was more than okay with that. It felt...

It felt...

There was no better term for the way it felt than the word she had already used.

_Bright._

When he kissed her again, his lips moved slowly, luxuriating in the way she tasted and the little shivers that ran through them both, hers experienced as clearly through the bond as he felt his own in his body. His fingers moved through her hair, fingertips caressing her scalp, as he trembled above her, careful not to let his weight crush her even though his muscles seemed to have turned to gelatin, and when he lifted his head to peer down at her it was with a look of wonder in his eyes.

✦ ✦ ✦

Maybe he didn’t want to hear it – a part of her _knew_ he didn’t, at least not formally, when he was occupying the unquestioned role of Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren. That was a decision she had no choice but to respect, at least while they were in the presence of prying eyes. It was a decision she had to respect while they were playing their game of captor and captive, of cruel commander and prisoner, and she would, if it meant she was permitted to stay, for as long as it would take. It wasn’t something to be taken for granted, and it wasn’t a name to be uttered carelessly, without thought, but even if she’d meant not to speak it, even if she’d tried not to, there was no way to keep it off of her tongue. The pleasure and attachment she felt was unmasked, and so how could she speak to a masked name as she climbed those staggering heights?

He could berate her or refuse her, and she still wouldn’t have regretted letting the rightful name fall from her lips, but she was hearing neither. Just the quiet of their breathing, and she held his eyes for as long as she was able, until she was meeting his lips instead. A soft sigh fanned from her mouth to his, and she followed the slow, tender motion of his lips, leaving her fingers to gently trace over his cheeks. The gentle pressure of his fingertips against her scalp continued to spill tiny, wonderful shivers across her skin, the same ones she could feel in the body above her. A body she wanted to have close against her, easing his trembling frame down to rest against her own. There was nowhere she would’ve rather been than beneath the cover of his hulking frame, and when she found his eyes again, the light and wonder she glimpsed there brought a rosy smile across her own face.

She knew better than to believe that light, any light, was _pure_ light – it was impossible. There was a treacherous balance in the galaxy, but there was a treacherous balance in people, too, of Light and Dark. She knew it because she’d felt it, a slithering and a pull at the edges of her awareness, even when her conscious thought, she told herself, had never turned toward obeying Darkness. It was there; she’d felt it on Luke’s island and she’d felt it during the months she’d tried to shunt the bond. It was a part of Ben Solo, manifested as ruthless, heartless Kylo Ren – she’d felt him consume that Darkness, feed on it from her own body. She felt it in his rule over the First Order, and she felt it in his rage and his pain, the same way she felt it in her own.

But she also felt his Light, and she marveled at it now, slipping her fingers softly into his black hair, guiding his head down to the humble pillows of her chest. Then she could run her fingers through his hair, and savor the warmth of his weight against her, letting the wheeling of her heart continue to speak her fascination and her affection. He _was_ bright, despite the black he wore and the reign he held and the name he chose, despite the blood he’d spilled and the ghosts that haunted him. Ben was still the brightest thing she’d ever seen, and she sank her fingers gently against his scalp, wanting to protect the beautiful glint of light she’d just unearthed.

There was only one assurance to make, the same one he’d once given her, and it still felt true now: she could feel everything thrumming through his body, from the wonder to the lingering guilt, the flickering of Light and Dark, uncertainty and acceptance, all of which she carried with him, promised in a murmur.

“I feel it, too. And I feel you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for beta reading for us! ❤️❤️❤️


	10. Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I dreamt of a girl," he murmured, his thumbs stroking idly back and forth across the clammy skin of her ribcage as he lay against her, his eyes trained glassily on the far wall of his quarters but seeing something much further away. "When I was young." He paused, remembering the loneliness he'd sensed in Rey while she'd been strapped to the chair in Starkiller Base's interrogation room. It had been a loneliness he'd recognized. "I think she was you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 

Kylo's arms shook as he lowered himself down against her, a soft, little huff escaping his lips when he felt his rapidly softening cock finally slip free of its warm, silken sheath, stained now with the residue of their passion. He came to rest along the length of her torso, his waist nestled comfortably between her thighs, and his hands trailed down over her to take up new moorings at her ribs while he tucked his elbows neatly into her sides, to create props out of his biceps to support the heavy barrel of his chest. Her skin radiated heat – it was almost like she glowed with it – but it was a welcoming heat, and Kylo couldn't hold in the sigh of contentment that was borne forth on an exhale as he turned his head to lay his hot cheek against the soft cushion of her breasts. He knew, immediately, that he could very happily stay there indefinitely.

The loud thud, thud, thud of her heartbeat mingled with her words and Kylo felt his lips turning upwards at the sound of them. He knew what she meant. He knew that she saw him, _felt_ him, as he really was. He didn't need to try to explain to her about the duality which had always existed inside him. He didn't need to warn her that he was messy and broken and torn inside, or that he would be walking this new path with her on unsteady legs. He didn't need to tell her that, despite all that, he was irrevocably devoted to her. She felt it. She knew.

And he knew her too, saw her, _felt_ her, even before he'd met her.

"I dreamt of a girl," he murmured, his thumbs stroking idly back and forth across the clammy skin of her ribcage as he lay against her, his eyes trained glassily on the far wall of his quarters but seeing something much further away. "When I was young." He paused, remembering the loneliness he'd sensed in Rey while she'd been strapped to the chair in Starkiller Base's interrogation room. It had been a loneliness he'd recognized. "I think she was you."

✦ ✦ ✦

Was this the opposite of loneliness? Isolation was all she'd known, and despite the plentiful years keeping no company but her own, knowing no warmth but the heat of Jakku's sun, Rey was feeling something very close to real warmth now. The kind that originated on the inside, and wasn't confined to her dirty skin. That kind that was somehow soothing over every nerve in her body, smoothing like water over every place that had never known such softness before. It was rugged survival or death; it was waiting and hunger and knowing in her heart that everything was already lost. It was never _this_ , and she felt a brimming burn in her eyes, letting them fall shut as Kylo's body found a new way to fit wholly against her own.

Drawing in a long breath to expand her ribs against his broad palms, she wandered one of her own hands down the nape of his neck, through the dark curls nested there, and gradually felt her racing pulse fall into the same rhythm of the body resting above her. They fit – body, mind and blood – and the shards of tears she could feel gathering under her eyelids were testament to that. How long would her loneliness have gone on if she'd never let herself see him for who he was? How many in the galaxy would never know this glorious warmth at all?

Blinking her bleary eyes open as he spoke, she immediately knew she could claim the same feeling – she'd dreamed. Dreams of despair, dreams of loss, dreams of hope and connection, dreams that were lucid visions more than the tangled incoherence of her sleeping mind. But to think of _his_ dreams, the ones he'd possessed since he was young, the ones that filled him with hope or torment, sent a pang through her chest, lamenting the many years they'd spent apart. Before she'd ever known, before she ever could've known, threading her fingers through his hair as she remembered things both timeless and infinite.

"I've had dreams, too," she mirrored back in a murmur, recalling the myriad visions that had sustained her through a decade and more of agonizing abandonment. She'd dreamed that she wasn't alone, that someone was going to return to her, and she recognized now who it was, who it always had been. But to have been wandering through someone else's dreams, serving as someone else's anchor? That was a softer feeling than most she knew, and she kept his waist hugged close between her knees, breathing up into the exhales that brought his chest down, quietly desperate to memorize that feeling so that she could have it always against her.

"I dreamed someone would come back for me," after all of her waiting, after all of her tallies, the end of all of her loneliness, and it was only now that it was, at last, coming true, undeniably. "I know it was you." It shouldn't have been, it didn't make any sense, but she could feel the truth of it with every thump of her heart, and she wanted his dreams to be just as solid in his own hands, too.

"What were your dreams like?" She was curious to know: overwhelming dark or overwhelming light? Silhouettes? Fear? Were his dreams a place of hope? Her own had always been awash in keen loneliness and persistent longing, a vague presence she couldn't reach, and she kept her mind quiet and open, wanting to see the things he'd seen, to feel the things he'd felt until they found one another.

✦ ✦ ✦

It felt like vindication. There had been a part of him, even with her legs and arms wrapped around him, his cum seeping freshly out of her to mar his black, military bedding, that had held onto the notion that she wouldn't believe him, or that she would tell him he was wrong – that he had been alone in his dreams as he had been in life. To hear that she'd had them too, before they'd met, before their connection had been burned into each other's flesh and souls with touch and fire, brought with it a cool, soothing wave of relief, as calming as the sensation of her fingers running through his damp and bedraggled hair. As for what she had dreamed, well, he had sworn to her, barely more than an hour ago, that he would always come back for her; he had meant it then, and he would never stop meaning it. He had no doubt that a vow that strong could echo back into the past. The Force had found a way to connect them across lightyears of space. Why should time pose any more of a problem to it?

Thinking about his childhood dreams felt strange. There were vast swathes of his life that he'd tried to block out in the years since taking up the mantle of Kylo Ren, and still more memories which he'd painted with the very blackest of brushes whilst in the depths of his despair. It felt all at once freeing, cathartic, and utterly terrifying to recall them honestly now, to find himself preparing to talk about them, leaving his mind wide open to her rather than snapping it shut over the past. He found himself wanting Rey to know. He wanted her to understand.

"I think they were always there but I don't really remember them clearly before I was sent away," he started uncertainly, keeping his eyes fixed on that far off point while his fingertips began to draw circles on her skin. "They'd sensed the darkness in me and it scared them. I was so lonely. So afraid. But I dreamed of a presence. A light. I used to draw on the memory of it when I meditated. I found it comforting." He shuddered at how pathetic he seemed, even in his own memory – a child, powerful enough to scare the adults around him, but too afraid of the dark to sleep without a nightlight.

"As I grew older, the dreams became my retreat. You have to understand: I was lonely, but I was never alone. Even in my own mind, Snoke—" He cut himself off, feeling the familiar cold fingers down his spine that reached for him whenever he thought of his former master. "In my dreams, I saw a sea of sand, and a girl – _you_ – who felt as lonely as I did." He tilted his head slightly, letting his lips softly brush the swell of her bare breast before he continued, unable to stop the memories from spilling forth now that the flood-gates had been opened. "I never saw her clearly, more like I felt her, like I could sense her Light somewhere nearby but just out of my field of vision, but she always let me share her silence, and silence was what I needed more than anything else."

He drew in a deep breath, feeling the hard mass of her pelvis beneath his diaphragm as his body expanded with it, finding comfort in her presence now, just as he had when she'd been a faceless companion in the desert of his childhood dreams.

"When the Darkness took a firmer hold, I started to resent them – they were a chink of Light I couldn't extinguish no matter what I did. It was like my mind was betraying me while I slept, when I was most vulnerable." His hands tightened around her sides, holding her close as he spoke the miserable truth: "I wanted to destroy them, _you_ , before you had the chance to destroy me."

He licked his lips and lifted his chin so he could look up at her face. "When they told me the droid had escaped Jakku with a girl, I don't know how but I knew it was you. I knew I had to find you. I thought I would kill you when I did. Then, when I met you, I decided I wanted to keep you with me, to turn you." He shook his head disparagingly on the pivot of his chin. He should have known all along that it had been a false start. There was Darkness in her, that was true, as all light casts shadows, but she wouldn't fall slave to it like he had.

"It doesn't matter now," he dismissed, casting aside his own foolishness before he could fall into the quagmire of dwelling on it. So much had changed since he had offered to teach her while they'd fought in the snows of Ilum.

"But what does matter," he said after a moment, lifting his chin slightly as his expression became more animated, “is that Snoke lied. He didn't bridge our minds; he couldn't have. This connection, it's ours. It always has been."

✦ ✦ ✦

It was another request he had every right to refuse: his dreams were his own, and she knew they were spined with pain. He owed her nothing, had no reason to excavate them now, for no other reason than she wanted to understand. It was a step he didn’t have to take, but once again, she found that he was obliging her; his mind was opening, allowing her in.

There was the boy wishing to escape the darkness, blanketed only with his fear. Finding only a deeper darkness, and a more dangerous fear, and she knew what it was like to beg for the mercy of sleep. Sometimes it came and sometimes it didn’t, and she let her fingers continue to glide slowly through his hair as he spoke, seeing the wavering light, and feeling his shame at finding comfort in it. She could feel the boy’s blanket of fear become a man’s cloak of loneliness, shredded with rage. She saw it reflected in her own desertion, her own terror and silent yearning and the sense that there was _someone_ , however elusive they might be. A shadow, or a flash of light. She could feel the cold mucus of Snoke’s fingers ruining his thoughts, just as she’d once felt that vile touch at her own face.

She could see the sea of sand, and her own forlorn shape in it, and the span of silence. He _had_ shared her silence; he’d shared it with her on Ahch-To and he’d shared it with her long before. It was a memory, like a story she’d once been told, but she could feel it in the soft places of her heart. She’d known before she’d ever really known. There was nothing that Snoke or anyone else could claim credit for – it had always been there. Like the stars, like Light. It had always been guiding her.

The weight of his skull against her sternum and the press of his torso still felt unreal; she slid the fingers of one hand down to his shoulder, eyes fluttering as the brush of his lips against her breast piqued her nipple. Her breath stilled a moment later as his hands gripped her sides, confessing what he’d once longed for: her destruction, a light to be put out. She was an interruption in his conquest forward, or _Snoke’s_ conquest forward; a stubborn twinkle. Of course he’d wanted to smother her, to clear the way for a flat, dead black that would never betray him. Of course he’d want to kill the part of him that didn’t fit. That, or he would _make_ her fit. He would quell her light and force her to embrace the simplicity of darkness.

Looking down to meet his eyes, she shifted in disagreement as he dismissed everything he’d just told her. It did matter, it would always matter, and she used the moment he lifted his chin to bring her hands to the sides of his neck, gently pulling him back up towards her face.

“All of it matters,” she argued, and even the moments of sharpest anguish had served the purpose of bringing them to where they lay now. All Snoke had built was a mask of manipulation and injustice and cruelty, leaving their connection a thread of unbroken light. It trembled, sometimes; it could be unsteady and it might flicker, but he was right – it was theirs. It always had been.

“I dreamt of a sea, too,” she reflected, although he already knew that. He’d seen it. “I was always reaching out for something that was never really there. Something close, but also far away. It woke me up. Not out of sleep, but it woke something up inside me, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I could never see a face,” just shifting shadows, but she studied the face before her now, with a sense of recognition so strong that there could be no question.

“You were never weak. We’ll never be exactly what they need us to be,” and it was an admission that she felt she’d always guiltily known. She would never be unalloyed Light, the product of a mythical legacy, but at the same time, he would never be ruled by darkness. He would always be more than an empty vessel for a hallowed bloodline, someone’s personal well of untapped power. She would never be a chosen champion of Light, just as he would never be an unchained monster of the Dark.

She drew her thumbs up over his cheeks, gaze falling down across his scar like the tail of a star before returning to his eyes.

“But you’re what I need,” she decided softly. He was the thread she’d clung to through years of self-imposed exile, through a loneliness whose depths no one else understood, and they were not going to destroy each other. That was not the balance they’d been destined to find. “And I can be what you need. I’m here now.”

No more dreams of seas of sand, or a light that was always out of reach. No more dreams of an impassable ocean, or faceless voices. She’d scavenged him from visions, and now she held him in her hands.

“You’re mine, and I’m not afraid.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo crawled back up her body until his face was level with hers, his cheeks cradled between her palms and their eyes focused on each other's. She was right, of course. (He was learning that she was right a lot.) It did matter, but only because it had been a step towards where they were now. They had taken a whole series of steps on their journey here, and many of them had been missteps, but against all odds they had made it this far. The route from here on out was no clearer but Rey's reassurance, her stolid belief in him, and, most of all, her understanding and acceptance of who he was, made him feel like it he'd finally crested the peak of whatever mountain he'd been struggling up. He'd been climbing in darkness, stumbling and falling, taking as many steps backward as forward, but on the other side of the summit, dawn was breaking and the road was wide enough for two.

He nodded in response to her words as an unpracticed smile stretched across his closed lips, before he dipped his head to press his mouth to hers again. _Mmm_ , he could get used to this, being able to touch her and kiss her, surround himself in more than just the ghost of her memory.

His lips lingered on hers for a moment longer before he pulled back to study her expression, warring with the idea which had been flickering at the surface of his mind since the moment she'd agreed to come here with him. He was loathe to leave her for even a moment, but when would there ever be a better time than this?

"I want to show you something," he said, lifting himself up onto all fours above her before hesitantly clambering away. His eyes roved over her body as the sudden distance exposed more of her to his line of sight and it was all he could do to force himself to his feet beside the bed, rather than descending back onto her in a ravenous swoop. "Just..." He held out his hands, as though soothing a wild and potentially dangerous beast. "Stay there. Please. Don't move."

He started to turn away, then stopped, and said, "You can, you know, get under the covers if you're cold, or anything." He moved his hands down the bed in a swiping gesture before he realized how ridiculous he must look, hovering in the middle of his quarters, a couple of feet away from the bed, stark naked, with his hands held up like landing paddles. He quickly let them fall to his sides and resolutely turned, walking into his living area to access the storage panel in the cold, hard wall before he could change his mind and decree that neither one of them ever leave the bed again.

✦ ✦ ✦

That smile was certainly something she could get used to seeing every day, and so were the abundant kisses that had been rained down upon her. A warm hum met the touch of his lips against her own, closing her eyes as she kept both hands at the sides of his face. With the weight of his body so close, it took only a small curve of her back to bring their hips flush again, and she began to slide one knee against his thigh, on the verge of parting her lips to seek out his tongue. On the verge of asking, point-blank, if they could do again what they’d just done, only wondering for half a moment if such an insatiable longing was normal. She couldn’t be sure where precisely she fell along the spectrum of so-called ‘normal’, anyway, and she began to sigh her rekindled desire against his lips before feeling his weight suddenly lifting away, lifting her eyes open as he spoke.

It was with a soft growl of protest that she let him go, turning her head to follow as he rose, and then immediately beginning to sit herself up. She blinked in surprise as his hands came up, curiously regarding his stature and the pleading command he was making. The view she was afforded from where she sat was the only thing that kept her from rising herself, narrowing a suspicious glare at his face before her gaze began to trail down. The question she might’ve asked faded under the distraction of where her wandering attention took her, lower, and her eyes delivered the stroke her fingers could not, though she did feel her hand twitch beside her on the bed with the retrained impulse. The urge to reach out and grab him, to keep him in her hand until he was hard as a quantum crystal, and then pull him tumbling back against her, to bury him back between her thighs.

Flicking her gaze up with a glint, she huffed out a breath at the suggestion that she might be _cold_. She wasn’t, and even if she had been, wrapping herself tidily in a blanket was not first and foremost on her mind as a solution to that problem. She couldn’t imagine what he had to show her, anyway, but her curiosity was swiftly roused, and so it was admirable of him to trust that she might actually stay put. Sliding a leg off of the bed, she spent a moment fighting back a smile as she took in the view of his looming form, bare, with his huge palms held up like she might lunge. Not an unlikely assumption, and she tracked her eyes after his retreating form. 

“I wasn’t quite done with you yet, you know.”

But he appeared intent on bringing forth _something_ , and she dusted the sole of her foot along the floor while deciding whether or not she was going to obey his wish, tilting her head and thoughtfully brushing aside the untied hair that fell there. 

“What are you doing?” she pursued him with her voice first, managing to stay seated for a moment. An inquisitive gaze was soon traveling over the walls of his sleeping area, and then she promptly decided she wasn’t going to wait for him to reappear, picking herself up and instantly breaking into a chill at the touch of cold floor against warm skin.

Padding out into the living area, she wrapped her arms around her chest while once again taking in the unfamiliar sight, gravitating slowly to where Kylo stood, peering into the storage panel he had occupied himself with. “What’s that?”

✦ ✦ ✦

The storage panel was security locked with Kylo's biometric information. It always had been, ever since the _Finalizer_ had been made the permanent base for his military division and he'd been granted these quarters as his own private sanctuary. Not that the secrets it contained had often remained secret for long when Snoke had been alive, always lurking around the corners of his mind. He had learned to put up walls, to keep his master out to a certain degree, but that had often created more problems than it had solved. Snoke had been merciless in his domination of Kylo's spirit, and insubordination, even silent insubordination, hadn't been allowed to fly for very long. At least, not without _consequences_.

Now, Kylo shared his mind with an altogether more charming intruder.

He could feel her drawing closer through the apartment as he rifled through his personal artifacts to find what he was looking for. He should have known she wouldn't be content with being abandoned in bed so soon after they'd finally got each other there. Normally, it rankled when someone disobeyed one of his direct orders but, then again, he wasn't normally talking to Rey. She might be a prisoner in the eyes of the First Order, but she wasn't a prisoner when it was just the two of them. She was free to do as she pleased, and Kylo found he couldn't be annoyed at her when her instinct had been to follow him, naked, into his living area.

"This," he said dryly, "is a cupboard." He took hold of a bound folio of paper and pulled it out from its slot in the neatly arranged storage space before turning back to her with a deadpan expression. The storage panel slid shut with a gentle snap. "And I thought I told _you_ to stay put."

He lunged for her, before she had time to react, hoisting her up and over his shoulder one-handed, as he kept the folio tightly clutched in his other hand. The view he got, when he turned his head to the side, was something indeed to behold: the curve of her bare ass and the golden lengths of her thighs, with his forearm clamped tightly across them to hold her secure as he carried her back to his sleeping quarters.

"It's taken me months to get you in my bed," he growled, trying not to let the heady spirit of playfulness, which was gradually seeping through to his bones from the continued nearness of her, ring too obviously in his voice, so as not to completely destroy his carefully crafted, gruff image. "Did you really think I was going to let you leave again so soon?"

He tipped her forward and deposited her unceremoniously on the mattress with a bounce before following her down. Tossing the folio aside atop his pillow, he quickly moved over her to capture her lips in a bestial, merciless kiss.

✦ ✦ ✦

It was, indeed, a cupboard of sorts, although not the ramshackle sort of cabinet she was used to seeing. His was a cupboard that held more than unorganized mess hall utensils and rations, and rising up on her toes only granted her a cursory glimpse before the panel was sliding shut. Such a fleeting view was like being granted a single drop of water, and the fact that she’d seen no details and had been given a condescending answer only made her more insistent to see what was being hidden. It was more than a cupboard, anyway – it was locked, which assured her that it must contain an assortment of fascinating riches, and the treasure-hunter’s instinct was in full glow before he was denying her further access.

“A cupboard is where you keep your teacups, not something you keep biometrically _locked_ ,” she corrected, disregarding the accusation she was guilty of. He couldn’t have honestly expected her to sit and wait, and she was more than happy to say so, abruptly losing the chance as he lunged forward. She was so pleased with how afraid he’d been of _her_ lunging that it hadn’t crossed her mind that he might do the same thing, squealing as she felt herself being hauled up over his shoulder.

There was no hope, at such close range – he was robust and fast, a meteor hurtling toward her, and she squirreled against the slope of his shoulder as soon as she found herself there. She hadn’t even had a chance to see what he’d drawn out of his guarded compartment, but she broke into a chiming laugh at the playfulness he was striving to mask with a dry, gruff persona.

“Do you really think I’m going to let you drop me like a sack of dumplings—” she began, too late, because that was exactly what he was doing, and she let go of a brisk yelp as her back bounced against the mattress she’d been returned to. A spot she hadn’t intended to leave, anyway, but she also didn’t intend to let him have the satisfaction of deciding when and how she was brought back. The sound of paper landing nearby on his pillow drew her focus away, and she began to reach for the folio, still having learned nothing about what he’d pulled into sight or why.

A mystery she was about to solve, thankfully, until a much bigger body was moving to quickly cover her own. More protest bloomed on her lips, as his close bulkiness was foiling her attempts to see the bound folio she was after. His close, warm body was also exactly what she hadn’t wanted to lose in the first place, and she brought a feisty glare up to his face only to find the kiss that he’d abandoned being resumed. Only now it was a new kiss, with an animal’s energy, and she flew both hands to his face to draw him more fully against her so she could return it.

Hungrily, with an impatient shimmy of her hips to encourage him down, closer, but there was that _folio_ lying so temptingly close by, and she needed to see it. Sliding her hands down to brace against his chest, she pushed and then squirmed to try and reach again for the sheaf of paper. 

“What _is_ this?” she pressed again, rolling over onto her stomach to try and bring the folio into her possession.

Lifting her ass in the process, she bumped purposefully up against Kylo’s torso, for the outward effect of more comfortably arranging herself to peruse the papers before her. Or simply because she could, because the feeling of his skin against her own was delectable, because the slide of her curves against his hard muscle was just as tempting as his secrets, and because she could waste no opportunity to taunt him.

✦ ✦ ✦

She was a wild thing, his Rey, and the echo of her laughter still lingered brightly in his mind as his body pressed her down into the mattress. However, curiosity had toyed with the signals she was sending out, and all Kylo could do was let out a huff of rusty laughter as she shoved him away by the chest, mere moments after pulling him closer.

The wriggling of her body against his had much the same effect as it had done in the TIE fighter, except the outcome was much more pronounced now that he didn't have clothes to shield him. However, it wasn't embarrassment that sheered through him when he felt his cock twitch in interest against her thigh – he seemed to have left that behind in the time before he'd tasted her. Now, the press of her hips and her ass against him, as she rolled over to snatch at the folio he'd retrieved, elicited only a current of raw desire.

It was a desire which could wait, however, he decided as she settled herself beneath him over his bedspread to flick through the papers. Her attention on them was what he had wanted in the first place, after all. Still, he couldn't quite resist the temptation to draw his fingertips and his lips down her back, following the line of her spine until his teeth could graze hungrily against the peachy globe of her ass cheek, before he shifted his weight and flopped down beside her on the bed. He lifted one hand to prop his head up, the other remaining on her skin to wander aimlessly over the space between the small of her back and the top of her thighs, as he tossed his mane of black hair out of his eyes to focus on the folio.

"This is my research," he told her, letting his legs tangle with hers on the mattress as she began to peruse his writings. "Everything I could find on Force Bonds."

✦ ✦ ✦

Research was a concept she was only vaguely familiar with; she’d stood in awe before the ancient Jedi texts on Luke’s island, and had held them in high regard even without having read them. Up until it had become clear that their teachings were separate from the reality she lived in, and binding the fact of dry, ancient wisdom with life as she knew it was going to be an ongoing struggle. That didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate an academic outlook, even if her own experience tended to be rooted in a more rugged, rough-and-tumble understanding. Survival was an austere teacher, and so to have something so neat and ordered beneath her fingers was a rare treat. One she feared for a moment that she might not understand, feeling her ribs flinch at the warm pass of first fingertips, and then lips down her spine.

Concluded with the unexpected graze of teeth much lower, and she hopped her hips up with a tickled laugh. She was determined to have a look at what he had brought out, however, murmuring at the prod of his cock against her thigh, and then limiting herself to a musing ‘hmm’ as she studied the papers he’d allowed her to take. Looking up as he explained what she had in her hands, she tilted her head at the answer, eyes widening in fresh wonder. All she’d ever understood of their bond, if it could be deemed true understanding, was what she’d felt. The apparition of him in her dreams; his unsummoned appearances as she tried simply to navigate the currents of her life. The horror she’d felt upon first realizing that he could _see_ her, that he could pilfer memories and sensations from her mind. And then the confounding comfort of having him see her, really see her, and share her loneliness like it was his own.

How could there be words for that? How many others had ever been able to feel such a thing? And who had the presence of mind, the diligence and insight to sit down and _write_ about it, to make sense of it? Kylo ranked among them, it would seem, and she stole another curious glance up at his face before dropping her attention to the pages he’d amassed.

“Research,” she repeated, grounding herself in the solidness of the word while she grounded herself where she lay, twining her legs between his thicker calves. Ticking her eyes over the words on the pages, she couldn’t help a studious furrow from coming to her brow, alternating between disbelief and awe, leaning in to better study what she was seeing. “You mean, this has happened before?”

She knew it had; of course it had. The universe was too massive for them to be the only two bound souls, and she quivered not only with the feathering of his fingers from her back to her thighs, but also with the knowledge that they were not alone. That someone else had perhaps tried to understand, and had maybe even somehow beaded together coherent logic from what felt like unbridled waves of danger and yearning and smeared lines between dreams.

Turning carefully through the pages, she spoke her admiration aloud. “You tried to make sense of it.” She could have almost found humor in his impossible venture, but it rather seemed that he had made _some_ sense of their bond. More than she’d ever been able to, in her fury. 

“So what does it mean?” she couldn’t help but reach for the conclusion, the answer as to why they were bound at all, how, and what purpose they were meant to serve, flipping toward the back of the folio as if it might be written plainly there. 

“It’s real, then,” she marveled a moment later, too full of questions to even let answers be absorbed. It was the same astonishment she’d felt upon learning that the Jedi were real, that there _was_ a galactic uprising against evil. None of it was just a dream. “How did you find all of this? I had no idea.”

✦ ✦ ✦

So many questions. He'd thought she would be curious – he'd glimpsed the workings of her mind – but he hadn't anticipated that all of her questions would come flowing out of her in a torrent. It was endearing. He'd never seen this side of her before, not in person. She was enthusiastic and her mind was sharp. He could feel it whirring away at the places where it was joined to his, like the hum of highly efficient machinery easing into its intended action.

He decided to address her questions in the most logical order he could.

"Not for a long time," he told her, his gaze skipping across the various notes he'd taken over the months, as she flipped through the folio's pages. "Not for generations, not like this – us."

Force Bonds, in and of themselves were not uncommon, between teachers and pupils, family members... lovers, but Kylo had realized, fairly soon after beginning his hunt for answers, that what he shared with Rey was anything but common. The abilities which characterized their bond – the way they were able to see each other and _touch_ , over enormous distances, as though the great swathes of space which separated them meant nothing; the way their minds called out to each other like homing beacons; the way they could sense each other's deepest emotions and wander into each other's dreams with the slightest of effort, or sometimes even _in spite of_ the greatest of effort; the way they had seen each other's futures and knew each other's pasts; the way they _saw_ each other – hadn't been referenced in any of the more recent writings on the subject. To find any mention of Force abilities like _that_ , he'd had to turn to far more ancient sources.

Many of the notes that Rey was scouring now were transcribed directly from their ancient languages. He watched as she flipped past a page of Kittȃt, with his own Aurebesh notes inked carefully around the margins. Many of the legends had come from Sith texts, actually. Their lore was steeped in the significance of the number two. Kylo hadn't needed ancient texts to tell him that; the Rule of Two was a well-known principle to anyone who knew anything about the history of the Sith religion. What had come as a surprise, however, was that the Rule of Two seemed to have had its origin in ancient myths about two that were one: two who could harness the power of the Force in its entirety, a power as strong as life itself; two who were so powerful that the usual laws of space and time could be subverted until they all but ceased to exist. Darth Bane had created the Rule of Two in its imitation – a pale imitation, at that – and so the knowledge had been passed down, diluted and incomplete, but leaving enough of a trail behind it to lead Kylo back to the ancient source materials from whence the concept had stemmed.

"It means we're a Dyad in the Force," he said quietly, his hand stilling on Rey's back as he peered down at her face intently. "Two that are one; two parts of one whole." He took a deep breath and realized that he was trembling slightly, as he finally voiced his conclusion, after months of researching and obsessing and hunting for answers as he hunted for _her_.

"It's real." His lips pressed together into a nervous pout. "And it means we were always meant to find each other."

Should he have told her this earlier? Should he have given her the whole story as soon as he'd come face to face with her in that forest clearing? He knew why he hadn't. He'd wanted her to _want_ this. As soon as he'd been close enough to see the glint in her eyes, his fantasy of flinging this hard-won knowledge in her face like a weapon had melted away into a bone-deep need to be desired, as he desired her. He could only hope she understood.

"When you cut me off..." He gulped. "I had to do something. So I went searching. And I found this." He nodded down at the folio, chewing the inside of his lip before his hand tightened decisively on her waist and he rolled her over onto her side so he could come face to face with her.

"Rey, I want us to explore what this means _together_." He paused, looking nervous but hopeful. "Stay? Please."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for beta reading for us! ❤️❤️❤️


	11. Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But now," he shuddered, twisting his head against the tight grip of her fingers in his hair until sparks of pleasure-pain ran through him. "I want you to surrender to me. I know you want it too, so do it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 

If their bond was untouched, suspended in a state of almost purity, Rey could see that same hallowedness reflected in the text beneath her fingertips. Languages she didn’t recognize, with notes in the margins written by a meticulous, practiced hand. Aurebesh, in elegant, lovely script, leaving what must have been the original text intact. A wealth of knowledge kept locked in a cupboard, shielded not only from everyone aboard the ship, but kept from her, too. Coveted insight, and it was as mesmerizing as it was unsettling, something dark-winged fluttering through her torso. The depth of Kylo’s fascination – it looked like a fastidious obsession, more truthfully – was on a scale she could never have attempted herself. Not only because so many of the languages were unfamiliar to her – she could skim the surface and pluck smaller words from what looked like a sea of greater, glimmering captures, if she only knew – but because of the sophistication of his study. What could those words possibly _mean_? It was, even in the face of her confusion, despite how overwhelmed she was by the breadth of his undertaking, magnificent. There was something about knowing that those Aurebesh marks had been written by his careful hand – was it gloved while he wrote? What were the expressions that crossed his grim face while he made these discoveries? There was something about knowing he had been thinking about the two of them while he ransacked the stars for these answers.

The conclusion she’d been rifling for came as smoothly and surely as the hand his notes had been written in. She looked up to find him already looking down at her, and how could it have been anything else? Two parts of one whole. Why else would they be always reaching for one another? Why would she have only felt whole once she’d surrendered herself, for the second time, to her enemy? The other half of her?

How many times had the Force threaded their paths together? When it was infuriatingly inconvenient, and also when she’d never needed him more. When she couldn’t fathom why, and also when she knew exactly what she was looking for. When the path had been as illuminated as she’d imagined it ever could be; when the future glowing in their linked minds, fueled by the brush of their fingertips, had been the only certainty she’d needed. And now – they _had_ found each other.

A part of her, briefly, wanted to challenge him: was she expected to take for granted his translation of texts she couldn’t understand on her own? Was she supposed to believe that what he had discovered could open the door that had long been locked?

The look on his face was the only answer she needed, just as it had been in Snoke’s ruined throne room; there was no artifice. There was only Kylo, pleading with her to stay because he believed they’d just seized the answer. Was he going to demand, again, that she let go? Was he going to dismiss her own plea for help and decree that they let old things die, the Resistance included? She’d felt it then, that he’d wanted to turn her away from what she knew to something greater. She hadn’t been able to see to the heart of that nebula then, just as she couldn’t decipher the elite texts before her now. 

She was being turned, literally, as she felt herself rolled onto her side, with nowhere for her eyes to land but his earnest face, her fingers sliding away from the text, heart pounding thinly. There was the same anxious expression she’d seen before, flickering with hope. As if he was as sure of what he’d discovered as she had been after their hands had first touched. Convinced enough to take a dangerous leap, to approach the enemy unarmed, vulnerable, holding nothing but the radiant certainty that you knew the way forward, and that you knew it was together.

 _Dyad_ – the word was a clean, empty shell; nothing in her functional vocabulary. But it meant something when Kylo spoke it, and she _wanted_ to know what it meant. It was terrifying, how much she wanted, and how easily she could abandon herself to that want. How easily she _had_ abandoned herself, aligning herself with Kylo rather than investing all of her efforts into destroying him.

It was never going to go away; if they were two parts of one whole, how could the Force-driven bond between them ever be severed? She’d tried. Her own unharnessed, broiling power was not going to fade away if she didn’t look at it, and neither was his. He could have weaponized this information as soon as he had it; he could have confronted her with it, a test of wills. But he was asking her – hadn’t he always _asked_ her? – and she knew she couldn’t stay, not indefinitely. She couldn’t abandon the rebels without a word, but she also couldn’t hope to protect them without understanding the power they were wrestling against, the power she was wrestling with herself. What if he could teach her?

And what would he find, in his knife-sheer determination, if she didn’t stay? She had the impression that he would gut the galaxy’s starry belly. More frightening than that, maybe, was how much she ached to stay, how much she felt she already meant every word she’d said.

“Will _you_ stay?” she took the chance to counter softly, a plea she hadn’t made the first time, her fingers coming to rest against his arm in a gesture that could either brace him back or draw him forward. She wanted him to stay, like this, the way they’d found each other when it was just them. She wanted him to continue meeting her halfway, truly the other half to her whole, and she didn’t want to lose the luminous warmth they’d only just uncovered. “I want you to be with me. We can bring balance back.”

✦ ✦ ✦

He could see the thoughts whirring behind her eyes, feel the lurching of her brain as she dealt with the new information he'd thrust upon her, but she didn't pull away. She met his gaze, their bodies close, their legs still wound together, and he could tell she was considering his question in a way she hadn't been able to consider his premature request to join him. When he'd held out his hand to her in Snoke's throne room, he hadn't known what he was offering her, but now he did and it made it easy for him to nod in response to her question. He was offering himself, all of him. He wanted to stay with _her_ , whatever that looked like.

"I _am_ with you," he reassured her, slipping his arm around her and pulling her closer, making the decision for that hand of hers which lingered on his bicep. "And we _are_ the balance. We're the place where Light and Dark meet."

He had been right when he'd said that it was time for old things to die. The Jedi and the Sith had labored for centuries to dominate the Force, just as Kylo had battled for years to blot out the Light in himself, but they had overlooked the fundamental need for 'balance'. They had been wrong, just as he had been wrong. Surely, it couldn't be coincidence, Kylo thought, that the Force had created a dyad out of one powerful in the Light and one powerful in the Dark. It couldn't be a coincidence that he'd found himself drawn to Rey's brightness, like a moth to the flame, while she had been brave enough to dive headfirst into the darkness when she'd needed to and, moreover, had the force of will to clamber back out again without letting it consume her the way it had consumed him. They were each other's equal and opposite, two sides of the same coin, Darkness and Light, and in the same way that a flame would always create shadows, Kylo knew that he would always be with Rey. From the sounds of it, they always had been together, just fighting it. If they now channeled that energy into understanding and harnessing the power of this bond instead... Well, the possibilities were endless.

And that was without even taking into account the way Kylo _felt_ about Rey. Completely aside from the bond they shared, and disregarding grand, sweeping ideas about philosophy and the duality of the Force, Rey made him feel alive. If they both found themselves cut off from the Force tomorrow, Kylo felt sure he would still want her more than anything he'd ever wanted. Her body, her mind, her spirit, everything about her captivated him. Her smile had been etched eternally into his mind and his ears rang with her rich, melodious laughter. Her body slotted so nicely against his, driving him wild with a kind of hunger he'd assumed was pure fiction before he'd felt it for himself at her hand. Her lips teased him every moment he wasn't kissing them; her eyes felt like magnets for his. And she challenged him, constantly, tempering his anger then stoking it, disobeying his commands then making _him_ beg mercy, forcing him to reevaluate everything he thought he knew. While the possibilities promised by their connection may be tantalizing, the possibility of living a life with Rey by his side was the factor he found most motivating of all.

"I don't know what the path is from here," he admitted, his eyes wide and expressive as they raked over her face. "And I can't promise we'll agree on everything, but I will stay, I will be with you, and we'll figure it out together."

✦ ✦ ✦

There had to be a place where Light and Dark quietly met, so why might it not feasibly be them, as they were? Didn’t the balance of the overarching universe begin with finding balance in one another, as people? Did it have to be any more complicated than that? It was naïve to believe it, but that didn’t keep her from relishing the possibility, like a splash of water on the tongue.

And he _was_ with her. He hadn’t taken advantage of her spontaneous surrender, either by bullying her into a more formal surrender or by eliminating her exit routes. He was asking her to stay, by her own choice – the same way she’d arrived. He was openly disclosing what he didn’t know, rather than trying to convince her of what he did. What was the path forward? Was there a path at all? He wasn’t leading her blindly; he was offering to walk blindly beside her, and she let go of a trusting breath as she was pulled in against him.

Someone more sensible might have offered no trust at all, but she had never congratulated herself on being overly sensible. No one was going to agree on everything all of the time, not even those she held closest in the Resistance, having found camaraderie and contention there in equal measure. Always in a harmless spirit, she liked to think, even when heads were butting and voices were rising, and it would be no different now if she was going to spend any considerable amount of time with Kylo. His tendency to give commands and her tendency to disregard them was proof enough.

With her body brought back into his thicker frame, she let the hand that had rested uncertainly on his bicep travel slowly up to his shoulder, giving a gentle shove there as she used her lower half to encourage him onto his back. It wasn’t a question, really; she’d already decided that she liked to be seated on his hips, and that’s where she maneuvered herself now, regarding his face just as expressively as he was regarding hers.

As every interaction between them had been painted in shades of danger and longing, so it was again – where could they go now? Or maybe the better question was, where _couldn’t_ they go? She never felt more full of spirit than when she was with Kylo, sometimes to their shared detriment and sometimes to her delight. He was capable of returning that light just as fiercely, and she spent a moment finding it in his eyes. That magnetic pull, that lupine glow of determination, his fervent hunger and his certainty and his hope, and she felt her pulse deepen in her chest as she glanced at his lips, and then reached for the folio he’d momentarily directed her away from.

She roamed her eyes over the unfamiliar language that she opened to, enamored by the fact that _anything_ could be contained within those letters if she simply had a key to unlock them. She didn’t, but the absurdly tall, scholarly figure pinned beneath her did, and she began to clamber gracelessly over the words aloud, unwittingly reciting the first line of the code of the Sith. 

“Nwűl buti zo tash,” and she soon discovered that her tongue was unaccustomed to the acrobatics of ancient Sith, “ilsir tik sh… shâsot?”

She looked over the top of the folio at Kylo’s face, to gauge whether or not she’d spoken accurately enough to earn a translation, squeezing gently with her thighs to bring the warmth between them flush against him. There was plenty for them to figure out together, there would always be calamities to make sense of, but to begin with, she wanted a glimpse into his world of pristine texts, to feel the weight of strange, new words upon her tongue. “What does that mean?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Again, Kylo felt that hand at his shoulder, rolling him onto his back and, again, his grip tightened at her waist as he obliged her unspoken request, pulling her with him. He hardly thought he'd needed to coax her, however; she settled astride his hips as though it was the most natural place in the world for her. The tip of his tongue flickered across his lips as he looked up at her hungrily, reading the open, trusting expression on her face and finding, in it, a wordless kind of acquiescence to his proposal. He was under no illusions that Rey could be tamed, but if she just stayed, even for a little while, he thought they might have a shot at working out a way forward.

Kylo's palms rolled over the elegant curve of her hips, traveling up to her waist, and he was about to let them slip higher, to join his hungry gaze at her breasts, when the folio was brought unceremoniously between them. Rey let it rest against his wide chest as her eyes moved across the paper, either blissfully or willfully ignorant of the dark eyebrow that twitched upwards beneath her.

If Kylo had been intending to say something about his newfound and not entirely welcome use as a lectern, the words died on his lips as soon as he recognized the Sith phrase falling unskillfully from Rey's lips. He wasn't an expert in spoken Sith – most of what he knew of the language had been self-taught from books – but he knew _that_ : the Code of the Sith. It was a rhetoric which had always resonated deeply with him, first as a child, then a man, struggling with emotions which felt too large for him – anger which welled up in him like hot lava and burst forth in uncontrolled eruptions. Hearing Rey speak it sent shivers racing down his spine and he felt blood rushing towards his groin to stoke his already not insubstantial arousal.

"Nwűl buti zo tash, ilsir tik shâsot," he murmured, his pronunciation far more confident than hers, his hands sliding around her until they cupped the firm globes of her ass. He pulled her tighter against him, feeling the way she slid against his quickly thickening erection, her skin still slick from the mess they'd made not that long ago. 

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion." His voice sounded guttural as he continued to recite the code, pressing his hips instinctively up against her in slow, sensual undulations. "Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me." He swallowed shakily, before breathing, " _Kriff, Rey...._ "

✦ ✦ ✦

The words were edged, like the barbed skin of a fruit, but her need to taste them was worth biting around those points. Words she would never have reason to speak if she wasn’t struggling to read them from the page in front of her, and she would never have seen that page if Kylo hadn’t smartly compiled the research in the first place. A trove of phrases and clues that could help them to understand how exactly they were connected, and she was silently and immensely grateful that she was not responsible for that pursuit alone. She lacked the patience for such a project, not to mention the exquisite hand with which to write, and also a basic sense of where even to begin. The fact that Kylo had been able to do so was worthy of no small fleck of admiration.

His correction of her pronunciation kept her curious gaze on his face, attention flicking from his eyes down to his mouth, where she kept it as he spoke. An arrangement of sounds that she’d never heard before, and she watched as his lips moved fluidly around them, catching glimpse of his tongue as he placed each sound precisely where it needed to be. With an ease that she knew it would take her weeks to muster, brow ticking at how easily he spoke, with such finesse. The same way he wielded a lightsaber, or dictated to his underlings, or strode across a dappled forest floor. As if every motion was unquestioned, everything a refined instinct. It was inspiring and filled her with a surge of something that was a hybrid of intrigue and jealousy, wishing to have that same mastery over her own tongue, and her own hands, and her own clumsy feet.

“Shâsot,” she repeated, wrangling the word that had given her trouble, a quick glide of tongue, and she writhed her waist at the grip of two broad hands against her ass. Sliding her hips heavily over the hard ridge that was forming beneath her, she kept her gaze fixed on his face, listening to the translation her spoken line was given. More than that line, it seemed, and her eyes skipped to the page where the words were written. A whole incantation of them, it sounded like, a code, and she tracked her gaze from one hard-edged character to the next, attaching the translation being murmured to the words as she was seeing them. Empty shells without the body beneath her to give them meaning, quivering at the feel of him rumbling beneath her.

His low, rich voice suited the coarse words, making them sound sleek, just like the skin she was pressing against him, warm and slick from the first well of excitement and soft with longing again now as she felt the slow roll of his hips up against her own. _Peace is a lie_ – something resounded within her at the words, something clicking into place. It was, to some extent, wasn’t it? The part of her that burned with hope refused to believe it, and perhaps there was a spark in knowing that what they had been between them was an answer in itself. Skimming her eyes down the page, she settled on another rigorous mountain range of words, taking in a breath before she attempted to scale it, letting that breath rise through her ribs and curve through the small of her back. Sliding the seam of herself against the length of him, allowing her lower lips to part around his thickening cock, she hid a small smile at his curse while attempting the impossible cluster of words.

“Dzworokka yun, nyâshqûwai – kriff – nwiqû... nwiqûai?” But it was too much, they tangled her tongue, and she flicked her gaze back up to Kylo’s face to await the rest. Watching the movement of his throat as he swallowed, she curled her fingers around the edges of the folio, shifting her ass more firmly into his hands, anticipating the slide of those ancient words past his lips, resisting the urge to dive in and taste them for herself. “How does it go?”

✦ ✦ ✦

_Stars_ , did she know what she was doing to him? He felt like he’d stumbled headlong into one of his own fantasies, where Rey sat above him, naked, reciting Sith lore and churning his lust with the wriggle of her hips.

Kylo watched as she worked hard to suppress a smile at his reaction to her. Perhaps not completely oblivious, then... Still, the idea that she was purposefully teasing did little to cool the fire which had been stoked in his belly.

His fingers pressed white marks into her ass as he haltingly recited the correct pronunciation in return for Rey’s butchered version of The Rule of Two. However, they broke away from her as he came to an end and closed over her hands on either side of the folio instead, forcing it shut. With a rippling of the muscles along his torso, he pulled himself up to sit, trapping the folio between them as he drew face to face with her again.

“Two there should be,” he translated, wrapping his arms around her with flames of desire dancing in his eyes. “No more, no less.” He lifted his chin, his mouth seeking her kiss, even as he ground himself up against her core.

“I want to be inside you again,” he breathed desperately into the space between them.

✦ ✦ ✦

_There_ was the correct pronunciation, the cool, easy river soothing over her rough guesses, and she could only watch in repeated wonder as Kylo spoke the foreign words so effortlessly. Like he didn’t even need to think, and she could tell his mind was elsewhere by the way his fingers dug into her flesh, and by the fact that his recitation wasn’t completely smooth, actually, but a bit halting. She wasn’t quick enough to call him to account for it, her gaze flitting from his face to the folio he had forced shut in her hands. Her features took on an indignant edge, not certain that she was finished skimming lines from the dense text, but a ripple of motion in his abdomen drew her attention away. She found her eyes traveling with him as he sat himself up to face her, and her toes curled when their eyes met.

The translation dropped a chill down her spine, one that scattered all the way out to her fingers, and she carefully let the closed folio slip from her hands so she could let them wander up to the top of his chest. _Two there should be_ – once again it felt like the most fitting words to be had between them, the only ones they needed, and her gaze flickered down to his lips as she was enclosed by two solid arms. The fire she could see sparkling in the dark of his eyes drew her the rest of the way in, catching a quivering breath over his mouth. The hard jut of his hips suddenly felt closer than it had been, and that pressure invited a hot, wild pulse through her own, sliding a hand up to find purchase on his shoulder.

Pushing gently to lift herself, she could think of nothing she needed more than to have him inside her again, keeping a true kiss at bay as she instead dusted her lips lightly over his plush lower lip, and the corner of his mouth, always inviting a chase, although as she aligned herself with his cock, she knew there was no resisting a kiss for long. Especially as she began to slide herself down, eyes fluttering shut as her restless body finally found what it wanted to hold onto. In an exorbitantly slick, greedy grip, now at last able to sigh her desire against his mouth, lips parting as if she’d been hungry for days.

Maybe she was, maybe she always would be, and she only needed to know that he felt it, too, in order to reach out. Luckily he was already within reach, and she noted somewhere in the shimmer of her thoughts that she liked _this_ , sitting face to face, eye to eye, held against his upright body while she held him within her own, between her taut thighs and in her hands.

She liked how she could move, sheathing him in a slow, deep undulation, and she liked that she could feel the heavy, lean energy of his body radiating against her own, balanced either to be toppled back or pulled forward. Or held right where they were, using the solidness of his muscled frame to glide herself back up, and then to sink flush against him, breath quickening as she did. The usual array of words in her head rapidly vanished, leaving broken Sith swirling in its wake, and there was still one word that refused to leave. It circled dizzily, her vocabulary reduced to that and nothing more, and so she pressed it directly into Kylo’s mind from her own, easing into fluency with each feverish pass.

_Shâsot, shâsot, shâsot._

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo felt the moment the folio fell loose between them and he quickly discarded it to one side. It fell with a slap to the floor, and he found he was finally free to wrap Rey closer to him, feeling the thrumming of her heartbeat mingling with his where she was clutched against his chest.

The muscles corded in his arms as he guided her up, feeling the tip of his anxious cock slip into place beneath her. Then she was sinking down onto him and he couldn't hold back the long, deep groan that flooded his mouth, even as his lips kept up their pursuit of hers. Removed slightly from the overwhelming rush of emotion and sensation which had drowned him the first time she'd welcomed him inside her, now he was able to fully appreciate the way she felt, the way she wrapped around him like a perfectly-tailored glove, letting him fill her and mold her to him, even as she seeped in to occupy the spaces in his mind just as completely with her recitation of the word 'Shâsot'.

_Passion._

Yes, this was passion. It wasn't the kind of passion he'd dedicated himself to when he'd been a troubled teenager, learning the Code of the Sith by heart in secret, the kind which bubbled forth in explosions of emotion and – he'd discovered later – could be slaked with the merciless swing of a red, plasma blade. This was deeper, slower, more consuming. This kind of passion couldn't be satisfied. In fact, with every roll of her hips against him, with every deep, countering thrust, he felt its roots digging deeper, taking hold in his soul. This kind of passion made him strong in a new, uncharted way. This kind of passion was proof that he was already free.

Rey's lips weren't able to evade him indefinitely and eventually, with one hand rising to slip through silken, chestnut strands and cradle the back of her head, his mouth was at last able to slant across hers and steal her shallow breaths. He wasted no time in guiding her lips apart, his tongue eager to dance with hers once again as their bodies moved together.

Melded like this, it had never been easier to see the errors in the Sith Rule of Two. _Two there should be. No more, no less. One to embody power, one to crave it._ The principles were there, the foundations of the Dyad, but it was clear that Darth Bane had never truly understood the myth it echoed or felt the insatiable draw Kylo felt at that moment, to become one with another, to give her his body and his mind, to let them merge with hers. It was _that_ which he craved – the oneness, the wholeness, the sense of belonging which he had found in Rey's touch, the overwhelming feeling that he'd found the missing piece of himself. Now that he was being granted what he'd always subconsciously longed for, now that the walls between him and Rey had crumbled, now that two were becoming one, he could _feel_ the power that stemmed from the union. It crackled beneath the surface of the Force, humming all around them. He'd been given a taste of it before, when they'd fought back to back in Snoke's throne room, but that had been an ember's glow in comparison to the flames which licked enticingly around them now. All there was left to do was to see how brightly they could burn.

✦ ✦ ✦

‘Passion’ was a word to count among the others, concepts that, outside of survival, held little meaning as far as she understood them. Where was passion’s place in the constant lurk and lunge of survival? There was a place for hunger, although that word, too, had already proven much more faceted than she’d known. There was a place for energy, always crucial, and a place for fury and curiosity and stubbornness, but there had never been a place for passion. A will to live, of course, and a searing determination, misdirected as it might have been at times. A variety of needs, some of which she could meet and some of which she could not, but never a passion like this. Never the desperate need to become one with another person, a longing that glowed in her mind as much as her body.

The low groan that escaped Kylo’s mouth against her lips encouraged her own soft moan to breathe free, one hand wandering up to the side of his neck. And then the side of his face, as if she still couldn’t be certain that he was real and solidly before her, and not the deception of a cruel dream. But his skin was warm beneath the pad of her thumb, and she could taste his tongue as it found her own, tilting her head to seek more of it hungrily. She’d seen plenty of junk traders lose their minds while drinking fire-water, but she hadn’t known until very recently that it was possible to become drunk on a person’s mouth. That there was the same need to dive right to the bottom, to swim through the sleek, fiery taste, and to leave no drop untouched. Now it was a need to lay claim to every inch of his mouth, over and over, and to bring him just as wholly into her own, moving more urgently to do so as she felt long fingers sliding through her hair and then supporting the back of her head.

She could feel the ideas he was contemplating, glints that reflected insights into her own, even if she’d never known anything about the Code of the Sith. Not nearly as thoroughly as Kylo understood it, but she could feel the spirit of the words she’d recited, and that he’d recited back, darting between them, and she could also feel the glints of light countering. There were principles she knew she would never understand as deeply as he knew them, but it had also once felt impossible to imagine what it might be like to exist so close together. Not only tolerating, but seeking something much deeper, a union to transcend their intangible bond, to _make_ it tangible. Her body was working to that end now, every slide of her hips finding hot shivers of pleasure that made her heart quicken, and the motion of the hips beneath her only seemed to enhance the meaning of the new word she’d learned.

There was power there, just like the power they’d shared during Snoke’s defeat, and it felt just as natural as it had then. A flame that had no choice but to continue growing, but now she felt like they were together in holding onto it, in fanning it. Like they were both prepared to let it grow in the same direction, and she was consumed suddenly by the need to feel _his_ understanding of shâsot. To be, if she could, the piece of parchment on which he wrote it, to be that fluid, painstaking hand he wrote it in, to be those sinuous, opulent lines of text, to be his neat, diligent Aurebesh, to be the way he held ancient words on his tongue.

“Show me,” she felt herself hitching against his lips, and she wasn’t sure what she meant – whether she wanted to hear those words in his own voice, or whether she wanted to feel what they meant to him, or whether she wanted to know where ‘passion’ rested in his mind, in his soul, wanting to be as close against it with her own as she could be. A flare of longing, that was all, to be closer, to know more, to see more and feel more and taste more, climbing up closer against his body, with that ravenous need to devour and be devoured, thought for thought.

✦ ✦ ✦

Rey attacked with her mouth as fearlessly as she attacked with her lightsaber. Her tongue was everywhere at once, dominating his, even as she drew him further in. She stole his breath, making his head feel light, and replaced it with her own essence: the taste of her, her scent, the warm touch of her fingers against his face as she ravaged him. His surrender to her was a sweet one, a relief after so many years of fighting to stay in control, to stay guarded, and he willingly gifted everything her body called for, meeting her tongue brush for brush and her hips roll for roll with palpable enthusiasm.

He could feel her mind unraveling his thoughts, following in their wake and cresting over the waves they left behind them. Her inquisitiveness probed him, demanding more, just as her lips demanded more. It was like the way her body clung onto him every time their momentum drew him away, possessive and hungry – the instincts of a scavenger.

 _Show me_ , he heard her say and he couldn't be certain whether he'd heard the words with his ears or his mind, but he knew at once what he wanted her to see, how to bear witness to the passion she ignited in him. His mind flooded with memories of their months apart. He recalled the compulsion he'd felt to find her – a compulsion that had rent worlds apart with its fury. He remembered the obsession with their bond which had driven him in a relentless search across the galaxy, hunting down rare texts which might shed light on _why_ and _how_. He thought about the long, lonely nights without her, how he'd desperately stroked himself to the memory of her eyes, her lips, her voice as she'd murmured, "I'll help you", all to soothe the ravenous beast she'd awoken in him. He brought forth the echoes of the vindication he'd felt in the forest clearing, when her lips had moved against his, and the way his world, as he'd known it, had shattered beneath her guileless acceptance and understanding of who he was.

He showed her all the ways he wanted her, in his life, in his bed, his mind skipping from one fantasy to the next in a kaleidoscope of hope. The magnificence of empires gave way in a breath to the humble honesty of small bolt-holes on far-off planets, where no one knew their names. Those were, in turn, swallowed by the hulking form of a temple by the sea, where they both wore grey by day and wore only whispered promises by night when they moved in each other's arms, before dissolving away to leave just the present moment and Rey's body, as she rose and fell beneath his grip.

His passion was wanting to know her passion, to meet it and equal it, to be worthy of it.

Blindly, one clammy hand slipped away from her back, curving around her lithe torso and twisting at the wrist until Kylo could press it down between them, seeking the place she'd so diligently kept from his fingers and tongue earlier. He was trembling, and sweat had beaded on his skin, but he was determined and he was careful not to let the movement of his hips or mouth stutter as his fingertips sought out that sweet, little bud which seemed to ignite her bliss. He felt the graze of course hair under his touch, then, beyond that, the welcoming heat of wet, silken skin. He let out a shaky breath against her lips, his fingers beginning to swirl in time with the undulation of his body.

✦ ✦ ✦

She might not have known her own question, but Kylo knew how to answer it regardless because her mind was suddenly verdant with a bounty of images. _Passion_ might not have meant anything at all, up until this moment, but the visions, memories, and sensations that flooded her head provided all the meaning she could’ve ever hoped to know. It took her breath away, and she could only cling more tightly where she was holding onto his body, willfully drowning.

There was the long lapse of lost time between them, the harrowing black of empty space; there was the radiant glare of Kylo’s determination piercing through that black, his bone-deep impulse to find her, and his star-scattering obsession with the bond between them that, despite their violent outbursts, despite their moments of deepest misery, could not be severed. There were visions of those old, brittle texts he’d gathered, of languages she could never hope to decipher, but which Kylo had. There was the passion of his need to understand, a furious sunset glow of colors, blood and gold, and there were furtive visions of his lanky body alone at night, and the tireless effort of his fist against his flesh, a sight that spurred combustible emotions within her. A flicker of embarrassment, a heat she could feel in her cheeks, and a bawdy hunger, a need to be the one lying with him, with _her_ hands stroking his tortured skin. A pang of sorrow for not having been there sooner. A vision of the two of them in Generis’ forest clearing, where he’d asked her an unspoken question, and she’d answered with more passion than she would’ve admitted to feeling.

And fantasies, cartwheeling colors and the glitter of stars, all under the gleam of hope. The countless passions of two bodies, and never enough breath to keep up. Heat and hunger, and she was startled to feel the weight of his passion, as she was feeling it caressing her open mind, just as his skin was caressing her own, the ocean-rhythm of their hips, and the hand at her back, feeling it glide down the curve of her ribs. And she was still _seeing_ – planets and hovels and quiet homes, being no one together, and then she was seeing the sea itself, and – a temple? A place she didn’t know, and the two of them garbed in grey, and long nights wrapped in nothing but each other. The sear of that vision in her baffled mind pressed her deeper against his body, riding closer, a silky murmur escaping into his mouth as she consumed everything he had to give her, finding that she was happy to guide, to savor and to seek, feeling him let her do just that.

But he always rose to return it, a balance of control, and she trembled as she felt him tremble, wanting to question what he had just revealed to her mind. The sudden warmth of his hand between their joined hips jolted white fire through the words she’d been about to speak, breaking into a startled moan as his fingertips brushed over the bead she’d strived to keep him from. Because she knew exactly how she would come undone if he found it, if he paid it the same mind he paid her mouth, or her breasts, or his study of Force Bonds. Perhaps having seen the exquisite work his hands could do made the prospect of those fingers down between them all the more alarming, and fascinating, and _wonderful_ , feeling her body respond to his touch as if it was indeed starving, eager and pulsing. Everything within her was starving.

But that bud knew a furious delight, primarily in dreams, and at her own hopeless hand, and feeling the orbit of his fingers against her aching skin sent another tight pull through the muscles of her thighs. Riding in heavily against his hips, she drew her fingers up from his face into his hair, curling there as she granted herself one long moment of enjoying the swirl of his fingertips. Then she angled her hips away, feeling her heart fall into a blissful panic at the electric pleasure that he sent shooting through her, turning her blood into liquid stars, everything bright and energetic. And dangerous, squirming against his thick body as she tried to focus on that seaside vision she’d glimpsed, longing to push against his hot fingers, and to stroke him deeper into her body, and to somehow avoid being overcome, speaking and lapsing into a helpless moan halfway through.

“That temple,” and her curiosity could never be silenced, no matter the circumstances, no matter the fingers rubbing her wet, asking skin. “What is that tem—” but she made it no further, breath catching halfway through the word and then dissolving into a whimpering sigh, pleasure rewriting itself with each brush of his fingers. She dug her own into his black mane as she faltered over his name instead, a warning or a plea or a question, in no particular order. “Kylo… Kylo? _Kylo._ ”

✦ ✦ ✦

She was always running; he was always chasing. Well, he wasn't going to let her get away this time. As he felt her shifting her hips to evade his fingers, he followed, the need to witness her coming apart above him guiding his unskilled touch. He could sense the pleasure it sent coursing through her; he could feel it in the way her body shook and squirmed, and in the biting of her short, rough fingernails against the skin of his back. He pursued it, doggedly chasing the starlight he felt glimmering around the edges of her mind and his.

The starlight illuminated the temple he'd shown her, painted in her mind's eye with the strokes of her relentless curiosity, and he heard her begin to ask about it until her words were stolen by a sigh. She didn't need to finish her question; he knew what she'd been going to ask.

"You imagined an ocean," he gasped against her kiss-bruised mouth, his brows furrowed with the concentration of holding himself together. "An island. A place where you could belong." His hand slipped down from her hair to splay against the small of her back, guiding her hips down against him as he pressed his forehead to hers. "I wanted to give it to you. I want to give you everything you ever dreamed of."

He didn't know whether the temple existed, or whether it was a shade of something he'd known in his past life. He didn't know whether the island was anything more than a figment of a young, abandoned child's imagination. He didn't know if the dazzling, turquoise waters lapped at a rocky shore on some far-away planet or whether they morphed into dunes of sand and shimmering heat when the Jakku sun rose. What he did know was that he would build that temple for her, with his bare hands if necessary, if that was the life she wanted. He would scour the galaxy, the _universe_ , until he found her an island with teal inlets and green, mossy slopes, and he would worship her there for the rest of his life, or as long as she'd have him. He would lie with her beneath the stars until they began to fade into the pale blush of dawn, then he would press her back into the dew-damp grass and make love to her until a galaxy of starlight was contained behind her eyes.

"But now," he shuddered, twisting his head against the tight grip of her fingers in his hair until sparks of pleasure pain ran through him. "I want you to surrender to me. I know you want it too, so do it."

✦ ✦ ✦

How often had she seen starlight? She’d skimmed her eyes over the twinkling dome of it, and she’d been swallowed by it at hyperspeed and in dreams. Always in dreams. Always against a stark counterpoint of darkness, of course, finding both loneliness and shelter when she closed her eyes. And she _had_ imagined an ocean – a trackless ocean, an immensity of water so vivid it must’ve been a hallucination. A place that didn’t exist, painted in colors that didn’t exist; a home that didn’t exist. No one had ever come back for her to make it a reality. There was no reason to believe such a place existed – that such a _life_ existed.

How could that vision be fortified in someone else’s mind, then? How could Kylo have pried it from her most private memories, taken it into his own, and allowed it to flourish? She could see it, in every color created by his own mind, running as naturally as a river into her own. Starlight; how could starlight be a forgettable commodity of the galaxy? The way it was presented to her now was so beautiful she could’ve wept. It was the glow under which everything else took place: the waves smoothing over shale cliffs; turquoise water and slopes that were one unbroken shock of green. The blushing pink of dawn, freckled with stars, and she was no longer sure which visions were his and which were her own, or if it was something entirely new created between them, the nearness of their minds reflected in the nearness of their bodies. Wherever it came from, she wanted it to be real. She could almost believe she felt blades of dew-bright grass tickling her shoulder blades.

The starlight of that vision was mirrored in the starlight burning around the edges of her vision now, a singularity of light she was only narrowly avoiding. But he wasn’t giving up the chase, and the command she was hearing only fueled her struggle. There was no one who knew what she wanted more, with every page of her mind riffling open and her body begging to let him unknot her, to fall apart against his intrepid fingers and around his hips. Pushing her hands deeper into his hair, she used the hold to anchor herself, feeling how much he wanted to give her. Her dreams and her pleasure, but he was also commanding her to give. Her surrender, the only thing she had of value to give, and the only thing she could also outright refuse him. A streak of feistiness, more than anything else. He could take the thoughts from her head and the words from her mouth and even the breath from her lungs, but he couldn’t demand that she surrender. Not when she had already successfully evaded being undone in such a way, and not when she could feel how intricately her pleasure was weaving itself, just to beg to be radiantly unfurled by one hand.

She didn’t obey cocky commands – _So do it_? Was he crazy? – and she reached impulsively for a handful of the Force, squeezing her eyes shut both to focus and to resist the rising thrum of her need, aiming to snare his wrist with an untrained, crude lasso of energy, stubbornly working to shove some shred of distance between his hand at her throbbing core. He was physically stronger, as they were both well aware, but that didn’t preclude her from brandishing what _was_ at her disposal. That was the Force, as it had been in the woods of Starkiller, when she’d likewise been backed up to an abyss. Gritting her teeth, pressing her forehead back against Kylo’s, she focused on how close _he_ was to shattering into starlight.

“No,” she refused bluntly, escaping his lips to grate her teeth down along his jaw, tightening her ferocious grip in his hair with one hand while the other came down to lightly curl around his throat. Just below his chin, to keep the unkissed span of his neck exposed, and she growled there, nipping, squeezing around his cock, realizing that – _kriff_ – she wanted to devour him. It was a thin thread of courtesy that kept her from sinking her teeth in. “Not without a fight.”

✦ ✦ ✦

The Force rippled around them and Kylo felt that unseen skein of it wrap around his wrist and tug.

 _No. Not now._ He was so close. His whole body was shuddering with the effort it took not to fall apart. Only the concentration bound up in the pursuit of her pleasure had been keeping him together. Without it...

Well, if a fight was what she wanted, he would give her a fight. Just as he had drawn his 'saber in the forest clearing to satisfy her need to resist, he would give her what she needed now. She may have his hand caught fruitlessly between them now, with bonds of Force energy, but two could play at that game.

His fingers spread wide across the flat, firm expanse of her stomach as he channeled dark Force energy downwards. He willed pressure there, visualizing that mouthwateringly sensitive, hooded, little pearl in his mind, remembering how Rey's hips had bucked wildly every time his tongue had swept close to it. That was where he directed the Force now. It wasn't a clawing pressure, not like a Force choke, but something more meandering, varying from hard to soft and back again, and he let it orbit her sweet spot in time with the ragged upthrusts of his hips.

Her lips had abandoned his and part of him was glad; he knew her searching, merciless tongue would have finished him in his current state of chaotic passion. But that sense of reprieve vanished quickly when he felt her hand tightening in his hair, sending sharp shivers of pleasure ricocheting through him. When its twin closed around his throat, just as her hot cunt clenched down below, and he felt the graze of her teeth against his skin, he knew he was lost.

Fire, as hot as any sun, began coursing through his veins, curling in his groin as it prepared to burst free.

" _Kriff_ , Rey," he growled, instinctively turning his head into her hand to give her better access to his neck. His eyes screwed tightly shut as he clung to her, his blunt fingertips clawing at her back to pull her down hard each time his hips rolled upwards. Between them, he let the Force surge through him, commanding it to lick against her _harder_ and _faster_.

"Bite me. Mark me. Make me bleed. Let everyone know I'm yours; I don't care. You’ve done it before. But I _will_ make you come for me."

✦ ✦ ✦

Just as he could write in an attractive, elite script, Kylo’s manipulation of Force energy was far more refined than her own. For now, though, she at least had the advantage of scrappy determination. It seemed that she had successfully caught his hand – his ministrations were stilled, and she began to give in to the confident glow that she would not be made to surrender after all. 

That victory had only seconds to take root before she felt the humid press of a huge palm against her torso, and she ticked her brows together at the dark hum suddenly traveling through her. 

"No," she gritted again, because it was traveling _down_ , and she immediately began to squirm, feeling exactly where that energy was being directed. Not a violent pressure – the kind used to silence unexpected guests on the other side of closed doors – but something full and smooth. A wandering pressure, finessed and controlled, very much like a tongue. The sensation of a swirling, lapping tongue was the very last thing she needed, breaking into a gasping cry as soon as that new, ethereal touch joined the spearing of his hips.

Any concentration she’d held to stay his wrist was soundly dismantled, as she instead needed to focus on bucking her hips free. It quickly became clear that there was nowhere to go, however – squirming only brought her up against new sensations at his hips, stripes of shivering pleasure painted by how he moved inside her. The addiction of that raw pleasure encouraged her to chase it, riding in hungry undulations, snarling against his exposed, white throat. She had him held there, at least; she could feel the fire it provoked like an actual, open flame, and she took advantage of his interest as soon as he turned his head. There was fresh skin to claim, though she could only restrain herself to feathering kisses for several heartbeats. Then it became a need she could feel in her teeth, and his taunting defiance was all that was needed to break that tiny thread she was hanging onto her decency by.

Finding that she could pinch the soft skin of his neck between her teeth, and suck the hot blood beneath right up to the surface, she gave herself over to that experiment without a second thought. She could taste a musky heat and sweat, a combination that served to whet an already outrageous appetite, and she wandered her mauling mouth over every inch of skin available to her. In alternating snaps of teeth and glides of searching tongue, relishing the pulse she could kiss over, that racing flow of living blood. It was a project she only broke from when the Force-driven pressure down between their hips grew more bold, harder and faster, and she couldn’t wrestle away from it. She tried, and the hand knotted in his hair came down to claw against his shoulder, pushing in protest while her mouth pulled the blood beneath his skin to her.

Everyone was going to know that he belonged to her, whether he wanted them to know or not, and she muffled a pleading moan against the side of his neck as the pleasure she was resisting began to glitter frantically around the edges of her mind and her eyes, a deepening quiver from her knees up to her shoulders. Roughly biting into the hard slant where his shoulder met his neck, she didn’t make any effort to dull the assault, tasting a coppery tang. It was the taste against which she buried a breathless moan, though it rapidly plumed out into something much closer to a writhing scream, bright with his name, as that incessant, invisible tongue and the aggressive meeting of their hips pushed her somewhere she hadn’t been before.

The only consolation was that she could feel Kylo being dragged down with her, and she raked her nails roughly down his back as she convulsed around his cock, clutching his body against her own like it was the only solid thing she knew. That felt true, while everything else was a cataclysm of stars and sweet, aching waves, falling into a meandering moan as she felt wet heat spilling inside her again, everything liquid fire, liquid stars.

✦ ✦ ✦

Pain lanced through him as Rey bit down on the tender flesh of his neck, a spear of brightness which stoked the fire that was already ripping through him, and he let out a strangled gasp to underlie her crescendo of moans. She was wild, feral, attacking with teeth and claws, pushing him away, even as her lips sealed him to her. She was like a desert sandstorm – abrasive, all consuming, blinding in her beauty and deadly in her fury. Still he held onto her, determined not to relinquish any of his footholds in this battle of wills she'd engaged him in.

His back was bowed in a deep arch, his body rooted to hers top and bottom, and his abdomen rippled in a sea of churning muscle as he rolled up into her with a last few jagged motions. They were the death throes of conscious movement, any semblance of a rhythm long since lost. He could feel her beginning to unravel above him, her mind spilling over into his, and he clung to it as he reached the crest of his own wave of bliss, clutching at the threads of her ecstasy and _pulling_ , until all he could see in her mind was fire and molten stars.

His cock pulsed heavily inside her as his hips finally fell to stillness. He could feel the trembling walls of her cunt convulsing around him, milking him, and his lips parted in silent wonder at the sensation, while his eyes rolled back in his head beneath fluttering, black eyelashes. The hand which had been anchored at her back gradually slipped further around her, and the motion was mirrored by its pair as Kylo relinquished his hold on the Force to wrap her tightly in his arms instead.

He was shaking all over, still blinking starlight out of his eyes, and all he could do was clutch Rey to him and breathe her name in a reverent chant as he lifted his chin and desperately sought her lips with his.

They tasted of blood when he found them – his blood – and his tongue quickly swiped out to clean it from her skin as he melted into her mouth.

 _Yours_ , his mind whispered to hers in the stillness that began to settle around them while they kissed and, then, when he eventually sank backwards against the bed, pulling Rey with him to lie against his chest, _Mine_.

✦ ✦ ✦

It was like the passing of a violent storm on Ahch-To – a slam of clouds, a ripped web of lightning, the guttural roar of thunder. And then, after, the sea smooth again, the sky clear and open, everything refreshed by rain. Except now it was her body that had been parched, waiting to burst into bloom at the first touch. It felt like she was the desert finally being cooled, the sea finally being soothed, all manner of wild things blooming. His wave crashed over the top of her own, and she felt it wrench through her body, spine curving as every muscle within her was tuned to painstakingly milking every pulse and gasp out of him. The aftershocks of her own euphoria kept her pinned to his hips, quaking as she was wrapped in his arms, feeling her own fingers sliding somewhere over his skin. Anywhere, everywhere, and she felt her breastbone rattled by every breath she wasn’t quick enough to catch.

Her name was being softly spoken, and lips were dancing in against her own, smearing the blood she’d earned after tearing into his neck. Flicking her tongue out to taste it on her lips, rich and dark and spiced, she found his tongue at the same time, sighing a soft moan as she melted back into his mouth. The warm smear of his blood on her mouth tightened a brutal desire through her: she wanted to be dripping with him. She wanted him dripping along the insides of her thighs the same way she wanted his blood dripping from her lips, painted all over with daubs of a feral love. It was a strange yearning to have paired against the radiance of starlight she was seeing, a sort of savage tenderness.

Sinking forward against him as he fell back, she felt the silver brush of words being spoken into her mind, closing her eyes with a quiver. Two words, and she let her head drop to fit over his collarbone, echoing the declaration from one edge of her mind to the other, finding a heavy heartbeat to anchor her own to. And hot skin to burn her own against, dragging a hand up along his side to feel the rise and fall of breath contained in his ribs. Her thoughts flurried: silently marveling at how many bones were inside his body; trying to understand where such a shock of blissful peace could come from; savoring the sound of _yours_ and _mine_.

She didn’t belong to anybody – nobody had ever wanted her – and she didn’t own anything. Anything she’d called her own was back on Jakku, in the fallen AT-AT, and in the marks she’d scratched into its walls. All of it could be taken away; she didn’t _own_ anything. She fought to keep it for as long as possible, the way she’d fought to keep her staff in her hand or her worn clothing wrapped around her, but that was the extent of it. She hadn’t ever had a place at someone else’s side, in someone else’s life, and she drew her legs in possessively at the thought now. _No more, no less._

“I want to see the stars with you,” she decided, still no more than a breathy murmur, and she let her open mind do the rest. All the stars: from the _Finalizer_ ’s sleek black bridge, from the _Whisper_ ’s cockpit; planetside, with no transparisteel at all between them and the sky. Stars near and stars far, seen from the terrace of that seaside temple; stars seen from where they bent the grass with their bodies, the night sky put to shame by what they made behind each other’s fluttering eyes. Not only did she want to see them, but she also wanted to taste them, and feel them, to be as enraptured by starlight as she was by Kylo. “And I want them to see us.” Maybe no one else ever could, but the stars would know.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo watched with half-lidded eyes as Rey's body rose and fell against him, buoyed by the heaving of his chest as his lungs labored to return to a steady rhythm. He could feel her hands roaming across his skin – her claws were sheathed for now – and his own moved in similar, languorous motions. One slipped down to caress her thigh where it tucked in closely beside his hips. The other rose up her back, following the line of her spine and swiping away beads of sweat as it moved, until he could rest his palm against the back of her head and let his fingertips comb idly through strands of damp hair.

Her words made his lips curve upwards at the edges in a soft smile. It might have looked out of place on his long, angular face under normal circumstances, but Kylo couldn't help thinking how well it must match with the glow of contentment he felt at that moment, wrapped up in Rey's arms and the feather-soft embrace of the Force in balance. Was this what it felt like to be happy?

"I want that too," he murmured on a sigh, letting his eyes flutter shut as his fingers laced through her hair. Before, when he'd looked forward towards his future, the prospect had always seemed grim and murky. Power had beckoned from the shadows and, in the early years after assuming the mantle of Kylo Ren, he'd hunted the idea that he, one day, might become greater and more feared than his grandfather, whose name still made the galaxy tremble. After all, if he couldn't be loved (and he had learned the hard way that he almost certainly couldn't), he might as well be feared. As time had passed, though, and the Light had flickered stubbornly on within him, his grand dreams had seemed to drift out of reach while he’d fought just to keep his head above the rough waters of an ocean of disappointment. It hadn't been until Rey had stumbled into his life that he'd felt something solid to cling onto, a raft in the wastes of what his life had become, and he may have squandered that gift at first but, now, he felt like he could finally see the horizon for the first time in years – perhaps in his life – and it was dusted with silvery starlight. Almost close enough to reach. With every slow, deep breath he drew in, Rey's weight above him soothing the drum beat of his pounding heart, he felt himself drifting towards it. He wasn't sure why, but he got the unfamiliar feeling that there might be something there worth discovering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for beta reading for us! ❤️❤️❤️


	12. Afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It hadn't been a dream at all. None of it. He should have realized his own mind could never have been that kind to him.
> 
> But if it wasn't a dream, where was she?
> 
> And where was his lightsaber?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It would have been easy to fall asleep – Rey could feel herself slipping along that soft edge more than once, but it was also impossible. Her blood gradually slowed to something her heart could manage, and she found that she couldn’t remember a time when sleep had felt so gentle, and so close. Usually, she was desperate to sleep, desperate for peace; now it was already here, embracing her without her even having to search for it. She was always searching for _something_ , and so she was at a loss as to what to do with the feeling now. Just being, just breathing, and it was the most serene she’d felt in a long time. Ever? Peace was so fleeting, she almost wasn’t sure what it looked like. It was swift and rare and feathered, and never at rest. Except for now, and feeling her body molded so seamlessly against the thick, quiet frame beneath her, she might have found the easiest sleep she’d never known.

The trouble was that the breakthrough of belonging was also thrilling. It kept her awake. At first, this was no issue, because it allowed her a lapse of time to silently study the tall, robust body beneath her. His face, mainly, not ever having had uninterrupted time before to inspect his features, and so closely. Tracing those features with her fingertips, she accepted that she couldn’t wake him, even if there was plenty more that she needed to know. Her attention fell to the folio they’d forgotten, and she pulled it back up to spend another short bout of time skimming through it. Without the help of her patient translator, however, it was a dense sea of runes that she could only blindly wade through. Beautiful to see, but she couldn’t understand it, and so she set it aside to instead recall the ‘sabers they’d similarly discarded. There was the familiar Skywalker blade and the raw-looking hilt with the crossguards. Curiously reaching for Kylo’s weapon, she turned it over in her hands while examining its construction. It looked like an overheated piece of scrap, something still half-functioning to be salvaged. It was entirely functioning, as she knew, with its quiet snarl of unstable energy, and she set it back down as her attention now wandered to her clothes heaped on the floor.

It occurred to her that she could leave – maybe; was his door coded? – that she could possibly wander outside of this room and maybe not even be caught. It was a flicker of survival, an instinct to map where she stood and procure a quick exit if need be, though it hardly felt in this moment like she needed one. There was also the impulse to stay, stronger than she’d ever felt it before, and she let her gaze roam fondly over Kylo’s face, resting her hand on his chest for a moment longer. But she was restless, her pulse was moving in ways it never had before, and so she rose, moving slowly so she wouldn’t disturb him.

It was a careful process of re-dressing, glancing to be sure she wasn’t going to wake the large, sleeping form in the bed, and it was quick, second-nature energy that rewound the wraps around her chest and around her arms, pulling the worn white layers over her torso and back up her legs, winding more wraps around her waist. Then came the leather belt, looping it carefully into place as she glanced at Kylo, hesitating before she reached to take his ‘saber and clip it to her belt. As a precaution, which was the explanation she provided herself, sliding back into her boots, and then taking a cursory moment to fix her hair back into the three buns she’d let it fall free from. Not an especially neat effort, just enough to have most of it held back while dismissing the loose curls that fell carelessly free. Then, flicking her gaze around the interior of the room, she stepped quietly out of it, back out into the open space where Kylo had opened the storage panel. A cupboard that she checked, now, as she passed by it – it was indeed locked, unfortunately – and then it was a few more uncertain paces to the door that had originally been shut behind her, with her hands cuffed. But she wasn’t restrained now, and she wanted a glimpse of what was waiting outside. It occurred to her as both necessary and harmless – she wanted to have some idea of where she was in relation to other notable rooms on the ship, and she had a weapon to mark her authority, should it be questioned.

She didn’t plan on wandering very _far_ , anyway, just enough to begin assembling a map in her mind, in case she wasn’t easily able to do so while in the company of those who called her a prisoner, a clean cut of air accompanying the opening of the door. She hesitated long enough to glance back, and then quickly stepped out to close the door behind her, finding that the body of their interloper had indeed been carted away. That left a clear path for her to begin silently exploring, hoping to stay as unobtrusive as possible as her eyes roved over the walls of unfamiliar passageways.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo shivered and threw out a hand, searching the mattress for the edge of his bedclothes. He was always throwing them off while he slept; his body temperature ran hot, like his blood, and he tended to instinctively shed layers in his sleep to avoid waking up in sweat-soaked sheets. Inevitably, the cool, stale, recycled air of whatever starship he was on at the time always ended up turning his perspiration into icy beads on his exposed skin, and he would wake, freezing and scrabbling for his blankets. He supposed it provided variation to the reasons he could list for his borderline insomnia; he couldn't blame it all on the cacophony of insecurities that used the night as a time to prey on his vulnerable mind.

Not to mention the dreams. More often than not, lately, he jolted awake, his pulse high and his cock hard, after a new iteration of the vivid dream he'd come to covet through his frustration. They all revolved around one person: the scavenger, Rey, who danced through his subconscious thoughts like spice through the veins of an addict.

There had been a dream tonight, he recalled. There had been glittering starlight and claiming teeth and ancient codes mingled with ardent vows; there had been an overwhelming sense of oneness, stoked with lust and ignited by passion.

 _Mmm_ , he thought, as his fingers found the edge of the bedclothes and he began to roll them over him. _That was one of the good dreams. Perhaps the best._

Something stopped the covers' progress while they were still covering only half of his wide frame and another shiver passed through him as his sleep-dazed brain tried to work out why. He seemed to be... lying on them.

One forest-brown eye opened blearily as Kylo peered across the bed, trying to make sense of the situation. He was on top of the covers, he realized, and his head was nowhere near his thin pillow, which lay rumpled and abandoned near the head of the bed. He was sprawled out on his back across the width of the mattress, the covers bunched into rosettes of black beneath him, and—

The Skywalker lightsaber rested innocently on top of the sheets near the foot of the bed.

Kylo shot up to sit, his eyes opening wide as he drank in the rest of the room: his clothes discarded across the floor, leaving gaps where he distinctly remembered seeing linen-topped boots, white leggings, and tan, leather belts. His folio lay open beside the bed, fresh from being perused by lush, hazel eyes. His skin felt tight with dried sweat, and semen had crusted in his pubic hair. No, not _just_ semen.

_Rey!_

It hadn't been a dream at all. None of it. He should have realized his own mind could never have been that kind to him.

But if it wasn't a dream, where was she?

And where was his lightsaber?

A jolt of sheer panic lanced through him as his gaze frantically roamed the empty room once more. Cursing under his breath, Kylo scrambled to his bare feet and hurriedly pulled on his pants and tunic, forgoing underwear for the sake of time. His body ached all over; muscles twinged which, until now, he hadn't even realized he owned, and when he fastened the tunic around his throat he winced as his fumbling touch broke through crusted blood.

She couldn't be gone, not after everything she'd said. She'd said she would stay with him. She'd said she would stay. She'd spoken about seeing the stars together. She'd spoken about seeing _him_. She couldn't be gone.

His thoughts were a riot of neuroses, but through the chaos, he could still sense her Force signature glowing brightly somewhere close. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but she hadn't had a chance to make it off of the ship yet. He could still catch her. He hastily clipped the Skywalker 'saber to his newly fastened belt without even pausing to marvel over the way the cold metal hummed with the power of legacy against the bare skin of his palm.

His boots were stubbornly resisting being pulled on over his bare feet as he hopped his way towards the airlock doors which separated his quarters from the rest of the _Finalizer_ , and he hissed in frustration when he had to stop and lean against a wall to drag them on before slamming his fist into the door console.

The sound of hydraulics filled the corridor as Kylo burst out into it, his jaw set and his eyes wild.

 _Don't leave me, don't leave me_ , he found himself chanting into the bond as he raced along the cold, sterile hallway, trying to hold her where she was until he had the chance to apprehend her. _Don't leave me. Don't leave me. You can't leave me! Not now._

✦ ✦ ✦

It was, in its dismal, sterile way, a fine ship. A clean, horribly extravagant, obviously well-cared-for star destroyer, polished to that reflective black, and it was quiet. No brash, noisy banter, no coarse arguments being hurled across crowded hallways. No chaotic jumbles of people or ship parts or crackling, half-broken radio transmissions. There seemed, rather, to be an alarming sort of order, an almost unsettling, brittle quiet that Rey was trespassing through. But she wanted to see, and she wanted to know what sort of danger she was in when she was relying on herself, alone. She wanted to determine what was where, to fortify something in her head. She wasn't even entirely sure what it was – but lying in that nestled cocoon of warmth against the body of someone she was supposed to hate, feeling only the devastatingly beautiful glow of connection and the bliss of so many shared visions; she'd felt like she needed to move. What if it wasn't real? What if she fell asleep and then woke up, alone in her bunk, sweating, after the cruelest dream imaginable?

And so she needed to know that she was awake, that all of the decisions she had made so far were true: surrendering herself under the sham of capture, admitting to the bone-deep attachment she felt, and accepting that maybe Kylo felt it back. Just as wildly and just as deeply, if that was possible, and so as she carefully made her way through empty hallways, keeping out of sight when need be, she let the gravity of her new reality begin to stir within her. She was awake, she was carrying Kylo's lightsaber at her side, and she could feel his presence in the Force as she wandered, nearby and steady.

Very nearby, it seemed, and then abruptly not so steady. Suddenly it was jolting, and she paused where she was walking, standing still in front of what appeared to be some sort of storage unit, listening to the whir of constant air. A spot that was dark, and unused by anyone of importance, but her inspection of it was halted by the surge roiling through the bond. An electric panic, and she could feel it growing more riled, like an animal realizing that it's cornered. There was no time to wonder what was causing that riot of fear – she'd only gone out to walk around, unauthorized as that walk might have been – and she turned her head to look back down the corridor she'd come through. His energy was palpable, a fire-flickering field and a hard glint of light that filled her mind, but then there were words, too.

 _Don't leave me._ Did he think she had left? _Left?_ It hadn't crossed her mind as she'd been in the process of briefly ducking out, but of course it would appear that way as he woke. Grimacing against a flare of guilt, more familiar with the pain of abandonment than anything else in the galaxy, she felt a current of her own worry spill over into the confused rush, turning to begin tracing her way back the way she'd come. A reaching warmth wandered out from her own mind, a flush of reassurance to steer away any thought that she had been doing anything other than walking.

There was no need to send words after it, because then her gaze was landing on Kylo's crazed form down the corridor, and she hurried forward with her eyes wide and her hands lifted. His frenetic upset was as tangible as the floor beneath her feet, and she reached to find his forearms, hoping to steady the panic she could feel radiating.

"Stop, no, I'm not _leaving_ ," she assured quickly, softly, taking in his hastily-dressed form before looking back up at his face, still half in shock herself that nothing seemed to have changed; it wasn't a dream snapping in half after all. "I just needed to walk around. I needed to see," and she had to trail off, wondering what she needed to see. What was real and what wasn't? To test fate, and see if it would take back everything it had given her in their shared shelter?

"I'm not leaving you," she promised again, letting her voice soften with how true it felt, how true it continued to feel, feeling Kylo's arms solidly beneath her fingers, and keeping them steady there. "I'm _not_ leaving you. I didn't want to wake up and find that you had left me."

✦ ✦ ✦

What was that? Relief? He felt the warmth of it spilling through the bond as he hurtled along glossy, black corridors, heading towards the rear hangar bay. Had she stolen a ship? Was she speeding her way away from him at that very moment? Was she glad to have found the chance to break away from him? He remembered her words from the clearing: _I’ll never stop fighting it._ Should he have believed her then, rather than letting down his guard and welcoming her in, giving her the opportunity to wound him?

He picked up his pace, vaulting over a small cleaning droid, the maelstrom of questions and doubts in his head swirling around a central focus: find her.

The soles of his boots skidded on the polished, black floor as he rounded the corner at the end of the corridor, and then—

She was there, just up ahead, reaching for him, with wide, hazel eyes and arms he wanted to feel clamped around his neck for the rest of his life.

His heart was racing, and his chest strained against the confines of his tunic with every ragged breath as he closed the final few feet between them. He stopped just short, before he enclosed her in an embrace he might never have relinquished, his body warring with his logical knowledge that it wasn't safe for him to shower her with the kind affection he wanted to out here in the corridor, where every security camera was a potential witness to their treason. Instead, he looked down at her with trembling lips and let her words wash over him.

Perhaps it hadn't been relief he'd sensed, but the reassurance he felt her pouring into him now. With her hands clasped tightly around his forearms, he could tell the difference; the warmth that emanated from her was for him, to calm him, not her.

He realized he was nodding, willing her words to be true, willing her not to go, as his own hands closed tightly around the rough linen of her arm wraps.

A line of confusion formed on his brow, however, as she trailed off and, with his gaze intense and his pupils blown to black as they drank her in, he asked, "Why would I ever leave you?"

Admittedly, he'd made stupid choices in the past where Rey was concerned, but he couldn't imagine a world in which even he would be stupid enough to let her go now – not now that he'd finally found, in her, the sense of serene belonging he'd been searching for his entire life.

"Come back to my quarters. Please," he added, his gaze flickering nervously from her face to the dim and deserted corridor behind her and the tiny red pinpoints in the ceiling which signaled the presence of holocams. It was a miracle she hadn't been apprehended already, and Kylo wasn't sure whether he wanted to kill the security officer in charge of monitoring footage, or promote them. In the end, he decided to forego both and focus on getting Rey somewhere private again, so he could cover her face with the kisses which danced ungifted on his lips.

✦ ✦ ✦

It was the most frantic vision of pursuit she’d ever seen: a man running, skidding, racing to save something that, by the looks of it, he stood to lose for good. A plain, human expression of fear and regret, so unlike the visions of him that she’d carried in her head, when she envisioned his dogged chases. Those were accomplished from the cockpits of nimble TIES, from behind glass. Those were aloof chases, calculated and cool and composed, far removed from the strain and sweat and flared pupils before her now. This was animal panic, a heart-racing dejection, and it felt like a bolt from a blaster straight into her own ribs to witness it. Because she knew what that felt like, to wake from a dream and discover that the joy had been a lie, to try and chase it down. To know that the pain was all that was real. She hadn’t meant to be the cause of it now, and she began to say so before falling silent again, stung by the look on his face. She wanted to hold that face in her hands and lay her reassurance directly against his quivering lips.

There were leering red eyes in the ceiling, however, which hadn’t dissuaded her earlier, but which she felt now, with the fumbling energy of Kylo’s body so close to her own. Closing her fingers gently around his arms, she let the strength of that touch convey her sincerity when a more assertive promise could not. Searching his face with concern traveling across her own, twitching at her brows and then at her lips, she felt his tight grip around the bones of her own forearms, and saw her confusion reflected in the knit of his brow. Why would he ever leave her? He did, in every single dream. No matter how close she could feel him, no matter how desperately she might plead for those moments to go on unbroken, they always collapsed. Snapped like tinder, and she would wake with a taste as strong as smoke on her tongue, often with her eyes burning. He always left her. If everything he’d said was true, then that meant he must’ve experienced the opposite reflection. She must’ve left him just as often as he left her, and she might not understand the mechanics of how or why, but she did know that she woke up alone, every time, without fail. Now, after everything they’d shared, how could she even risk falling asleep?

It was senseless, she knew, but she also knew that was a pain she wasn’t ready to endure. If she fell asleep beside his breathing body and then woke up alone, only to discover that every vow and the ghost of every adoration was a desert mirage, could she bear it? She could afford to lose almost any possession, and she could survive on very little. But _this_ , what they’d found and the things they’d said and the way it made her feel; she could not afford to lose that.

She was saved from having to answer, thankfully, as he instead issued a command, and she glanced at the unblinking eyes of the holocams in the ceiling. It was only luck that her anxious wandering hadn’t been interrupted by anyone else, and she resisted the urge to continue tempting fate, as much as she would have liked to pull him to her and sink her hands into his wild hair while she kissed away the heartbreaking panic from his face. Obeying in silence, she slipped her fingers down to find his hands, feathering slowly over his palms before letting them go so she could turn and begin retracing her steps through the empty corridor.

The thought of returning to his quarters, of finding it the same as when she’d stepped out, riffled the edges of her heart, relief beginning to warm through her blood. He was still beside her, _real_ , and even if her wonder at that fact couldn’t be expressed quite yet, she kept herself close enough to feel the brush of his sleeve against her arm, the shift of air parting around his wide torso, consuming the simplest sensations that proved she wasn’t waiting to wake up. He was here, and real, starlight real, and she wanted to revel, to break into a bumbling explanation, to apologize, every spark of aimless energy being corralled back in around its center, and she failed to keep back a hushed, hurried breath as they went. 

“I was afraid, Kylo, I thought you would disappear.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo could sense the train of her thoughts: the endless torture of mornings waking up alone after dreams filled with passion, each its own small heartbreak; the fear that she would open her eyes and he would be gone. He knew that fear – knew what it felt like in reality now too. He understood. But couldn't she see that things would be different now? They were together, and he would make sure she never woke up alone again if that was what she needed from him.

He felt her fingers glide across his hands, just for an instant before they were empty once again. His heart clenched at the loss of even that and, once he'd guided her past him and fallen in step just a half-pace behind her, close enough to feel her arm brush his as they walked, he reached out and caught her hands in his from behind. Still highly aware of the holocams and their raptor gaze, he pulled them up snugly behind her back in feigned restraint, whilst surreptitiously lacing his fingers through hers. The bond hummed where skin met skin, and Kylo felt his stomach squirming in a joyful kind of disbelief as he let his thumbs brush back and forth over hers as they walked. She was still here. He could still touch her. He hadn't lost his chance.

He was close to her now, close enough to her ear that he barely needed to move his lips to murmur, "You don't need to be afraid anymore." 

The words called a memory to mind: a scrawny, fiery scavenger, still infused with desert heat, abrasive like sand, strapped to a chair as he tore into her mind, and her into his. _You're afraid_ , she had said to him, and she had been right. If only he'd known then that she would be the one to put his fears to rest, how much pain could have been averted? How much wasted time could have been saved?

"You don't need to be afraid anymore," he repeated softly, and he wasn't entirely sure which one of them he was speaking to.

Together, they rounded a corner and the doors to Kylo's quarters loomed up ahead, sealed shut and forbidding in their steely shade of black. He led her up to them, then reluctantly de-tangled his fingers from hers to work the console.

Kylo's pulse had relaxed a little as they'd walked, despite the sparking of nerve endings at the points where her skin brushed his, but as the doors hissed open and solitude beckoned, he felt the telltale thumping in his chest again. The hand which was still grasping one of hers tightened slightly as he followed her inside, then the doors were shutting behind them and it was all Kylo could do to wait until the sound of recycled air from the corridor had been cut off completely before he engulfed her in his arms. He tugged on her hand, spinning her to face him, and crushed his mouth savagely to hers, the way he'd longed to when he'd found her.

"I'll give you the kriffing blueprints to the ship if you want them," he growled against her lips. "Just _please_ don't do that again. I'll find a way for you to move around freely." Each natural pause in his speech was punctuated with a searing kiss. "You just need to be patient."

✦ ✦ ✦

If there was a preferred way to be captured, it was without a doubt like this: with her hands held decisively behind her back, snared and laced with much bigger fingers. The bond trilled at the contact, and she curled her fingers in to keep the touch warm and snug, a grateful chill dancing across the tops of her shoulders. She realized she would likely let herself be guided anywhere in this way: with two broad hands securing her own, feeling the shadow of his weight close behind her, the kiss of their combined, radiating heat. Close enough to touch, almost, although it was still just one breath of air shifting against another, and she stole another glance up as they rerouted back toward Kylo's quarters. Who would question him, if anyone had even been sparing a glance to catch their bemusing encounter? She'd escaped, he'd caught her, and surely someone else was to blame for allowing such a breach of security in the first place. If she was going to be apprehended, she wanted it to be with the slide of his thick, flat thumbs traveling back and forth over her own, making her fingers curl tighter.

Words were once again being spoken so closely that she almost couldn't tell if they were filling the shell of her ear or just the shell of her sparkling thoughts. Maybe both, and another chill chased the first down her spine, both at the fact that the assurance was spoken so closely that she could feel the warmth of it, and because it was the first time she had been assured in that way before. Stripping her fear of the power it held – he'd seen it in her and she'd seen it in him, and then, together, they'd denied it any dominion between them. She wanted to believe that, and she found it much easier to trust his words rather than her own whirling mind. Back in each other's grasp, in that secret, sacred proximity, how could fear weasel out a spot for itself? She closed her eyes briefly, let the words cascade over her aurora of thoughts, and then sent them echoing directly back.

And then there were the clean, black doors she had escaped through not long before, but instead of feeling like she was being escorted back into a cage, she felt like she was being guided back home, and a shaken breath fell past her lips. The doors breathed that same sharp hiss, gaped open, and she swooped a swift, suspicious gaze over the walls of his quarters as they stepped inside. It was the same – the wavering details of a dream were betraying no such manipulation – but the fingers tightening around her hand, spinning her around, drew her focus away. Just in time to glimpse the doors gliding shut, and then to feel two hard arms wrapping her in an embrace that she hadn't wanted to leave in the first place. Not if she'd had any way of knowing whether or not it was true, if she could really feel it beneath her palms, but she quickly discovered that she still could. She could also feel it against her lips, melting forward with a blissfully frustrated sigh.

Pushing into him to eliminate the maddening space between their bodies, she allowed her hands, now free from peering holocams, to plunge into black hair, not wasting any time in prying past his lips to eat his words as he spoke them. Blueprints; the sensible part of her head knew that such a gift would prove useful, and her curiosity would now go on unsatisfied if she didn't have it. It wasn't the comfort she needed, however, and while she was thankful for the vow that her freedom would be secured, that wasn't a part of what she craved, either. Pale necessities to what she truly needed, which was exactly what she had been returned to now, leaning up and in as if she urgently needed to make up for time lost when she could've been exploring his mouth instead of his ship.

 _Patience_ – that was something she couldn't promise to anyone, anywhere, and at any price, and she felt certain that Kylo knew that, pulling him down closer in order to lay out her own demand over his, the one that felt, as most impulsive demands did, most important.

"No blueprints, just show me where your kriffing 'fresher is."

✦ ✦ ✦

Rey's hands were in his hair again, twisting through the black strands with a claiming kind of roughness as her tongue besieged his mouth. The relief he felt was palpable, and he sensed it in her too – the sensation that this was a place of belonging being reclaimed. His hand came up to clasp the back of her neck as he began pushing her backwards against the recessed wall of the doorway, and he only paused when he heard her speak.

The demand brought a spontaneous huff of laughter to his lips before he could school them to deliver a response more befitting the leader of a galactic superpower. Rey really was something else; her manner was rough, yet endearing, and he found it only made him want to kiss her all the more. He looked down at her fondly for a moment, his tongue smoothing over his kiss-bruised lips before he reluctantly extricated himself from her and motioned to a much smaller door than the ones they stood in front of, on the opposite side of the room, close to his sleeping area and set into one of the wall panels so seamlessly that it almost blended in.

He stepped away from her, employing as much subtly as possible as he turned and adjusted the leather which was stretched tight over his groin again. It was strange, he thought as he moved towards the comlink on the wall close to the sharp, black table in his living area which served as both dining table and desk; he'd always considered himself relatively uninterested in sex – he'd always had far more pressing priorities – but, after only a few hours in Rey's company, his body seemed to be trying hard to make up for lost time, fifteen years' worth of it. He wasn't entirely sure how to deal with it. Was it acceptable to want to devour your sexual partner the way he wanted to devour Rey? He decided to revisit that question once they'd both had the chance to eat something more substantial than each other's kisses.

"Are you hungry?" he asked over his shoulder. "I'll have something sent up."

✦ ✦ ✦

The possibility of hot water searing against her skin was tempting, and spontaneously so, but now that it had flitted across her mind, there was no letting it go. Being covered in the familiar stains of dirt and sweat was not a state she was repulsed by; more often than not, that was simply the way it was. Training was dirty, working on and in grimy ships was dirty, traveling was dirty. It didn’t bother her, and it wasn’t necessarily the basis for what she was after now, either. It would have to be tended to at some point, one way or another, and if there was a spot inside Kylo’s quarters designated for that purpose, then it seemed like there was no better time. Maybe no better way of washing away the doubt and fear that had clung to her, either, and maybe it was more simple than that as she felt a heavier body pushing up against her own. Fleetingly, and then he was removing himself to dutifully answer her, and she lifted her gaze to follow where he indicated the smaller door across the room.

Another neat and measured arrangement of a door set tidily into a wall panel, and she only considered it long enough to realize that Kylo was moving toward the comlink, mind set on a different matter altogether. It was a fair question – there were few times when she wasn’t hungry, when the notion of food didn’t pique her interest – and if she gave it her full attention now, she was sure she could eat. The fact that she couldn’t remember the last time she had seemed to be a fair indication that it was another need to be tended to sooner rather than later. It wasn’t what she had been thinking of moments before, however, and it wasn’t powerful enough to redirect where her thoughts had been, no matter how substantial meals in the First Order must be, compared to what she was used to. Rations on Jakku and rations in the Resistance, for the most part; scraps were what she had fed on longest. So, food was never far from her mind, but she furrowed her brow to hear it being planned around now. She didn’t want anything sent up, and she didn’t like the implications that it might mean she was going to be left alone again.

Maybe not, but it wasn’t what she was going to allow to happen, regardless. Stepping after him, she reached to find his wrist, encircling her fingers resolutely there to begin pulling him away from the comlink and whatever it was he’d planned to do with it. Her intent had not been to be left to her own devices, and she only made her way toward the door she’d been directed to once she had Kylo in tow.

“I don’t think you understand,” she interjected, despite the kindness of the offer. If food could be sent up now, then it stood to reason that food could also be spent up a little later, and she could still answer his question honestly without having any interest, at the moment, in food. Reaching the smaller door, she came to a stop and turned to face him, dropping his hand to instead bring her fingers under the edge of his tunic.

“I am hungry, but I don’t want anything sent up,” not right now, anyway, and she began to lift the hem of the tunic so she could slide her warm hands flush against the ridges of muscle underneath, feeling that there was no reason she should be made to enter a refresher alone. Not considering what she had in front of her, and she stepped in closer, rising up to murmur against the corner of his mouth, thick with a growl that couldn’t be helped.

“You’re coming with me.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo's finger was already hovering over the comlink button when he felt Rey's warm hand close around his wrist, arresting his attention. He turned his head, a wrinkle of confusion forming between his eyebrows at the way she pulled him away from the little console, but the firm set to her jaw gave her an air of resoluteness and he found himself powerless to resist her as she led him away towards the 'fresher. She was right; he didn't understand. Did she... need him to point out where the door release button was?

Any other guesses he might have had as to the meaning of her perplexing behavior were abandoned as soon as he felt her searching hands slip beneath his hastily donned tunic. Her palms were warm and clammy – or perhaps that was just his skin; he felt like he was burning up beneath her touch – and they sent bolts of electricity straight through him until he could feel it crackling and sparking from his head to his feet. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe. He'd had her twice now, been inside her as she'd fallen with him into a well of starlight, yet the feel of her hands on his skin and her hot breath against the corner of his mouth, seemed to have turned his brain to jelly and his cock to stone. His pants, which had felt uncomfortably snug the moment before, now strained to contain the evidence of his desire, just a few inches below where her fingers played across his abdomen beneath his tunic and belt.

His mouth was dry, and he tried to wet his lips, to gulp, to... _anything_ other than just gape down at her, but it was impossible. His hands drifted uncertainly over her hips, her waist, as though they weren't quite sure where they were supposed to be. When she spoke again, it took his poor, blood-starved brain a few moments to fully comprehend what she was telling him, what it was she wanted. When it did, however, he felt his stomach immediately take flight within him (Wasn't it bad enough that his heart was already trying to escape out of him through his throat?) as his pupils quickly all but consumed the last traces of brown from his wide eyes.

"I'm..." he started to repeat, but trailed off and simply breathed, "Okay," instead, as his hands closed more firmly around her small middle. Suddenly, the idea of having anything near his mouth but her skin and her tongue and her hot, little cunt seemed completely preposterous. In fact, he wasn't sure what he'd been thinking to suggest anything else. He was so glad she'd been there to put him right. When his lips sealed against hers once more, it was with a hunger more intense than any he'd ever felt for food.

✦ ✦ ✦

He was hot beneath her hands, and she could feel something kinetic in his energy, a shared electricity through the bond, and it was only his dumbfounded reaction that interrupted those rising thoughts. He looked puzzled, and his hands were hovering over her hips and her waist like birds unsure where to land. It was only then that she spared a moment to reframe, in her mind, her blossoming desire – was it acceptable? Was there some limit she’d already exceeded? It was ludicrous to think so; it was like saying there was only so much green to see, or that food should be forgotten before the hunger was satisfied. She already knew that the answer didn’t matter: acceptable or not, she was hungry. Despite what other bonded sentients in the galaxy felt, her desire had not yet found its limit. Was it concerning to think that it never would?

She lingered against the corner of his mouth, her fingertips following the swells and dips of his abdomen, waiting to hear that she made no sense. That he didn’t understand her, and he wanted no part of the hunger she was sinking deeper and deeper into. What did _normal_ people do? What did they do in the company of the one they were loyal to? Did they feel the same insatiable pull she felt every time she stepped within a certain radius of Kylo’s space? Was she supposed to keep track – was there a couth number she shouldn’t cross, of how many times their bodies could claim each other? Was passion tallied in that way? Did it come up against a stopping point, and if it did, was she supposed to have already found it? None of the tallies in her life had ever stopped. Was she supposed to have had enough?

She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d had _enough_ – food, water, peace, dreams, flight – and now, with the bond burning so bright and freely between them, she couldn’t have enough of Kylo, either. Not enough of his thoughts spilling over into her own in hot waves, and not enough of his body moving against her, a belonging she’d spent a lifetime looking for. An intensity of longing that she was on the verge of explaining away, but then she felt his hands wrap more conclusively around her waist, and her wandering fingers found the tight, straining leather below his tunic. His lips covering her own quieted her momentary concern that she was too unreasonably starved, and she swiftly brought her fingers up to begin fumbling with his belt. Letting it clatter to the floor, she attacked the tunic covering his torso, shoving it impatiently from his shoulders and bumping her weight forward.

It would’ve been easy to forget the ‘fresher, actually – several other tendrils of yearning bloomed just as easily. Unfastening the straining leather of his pants and letting him hoist her up against the nearest wall; tackling him onto the floor right where they stood and enthroning herself once again on his hips; grappling with him until her own hands and knees hit the black permasteel and she could take his crushing weight against her back. It didn’t matter. He was all she wanted, in every way, and it was a desperate, dangerously passionate want, something she could feel thickening in her pulse. It was, as they’d already discovered, nothing less than fangs and animal fixation. Her soul had never been so adamant, but how could she deny it, now that it had found its other half? It couldn’t stand being apart.

Maybe she was irredeemable, too feral to ever be domesticated. Maybe it was simply Kylo’s misfortune that he was on the receiving end of it. But the hunger of his mouth against her own was too addicting to ignore, and she wrestled his tongue with lusty aggression. She kept her small body pressed in close, riding her hips in heavily against the hard bulge beneath his leather, a wet patch already burning through her leggings, pulsing to have him free. If the Force was responsible for bridging them, was it also responsible for this depth of connection? She could only breathe her sins against the humid confessional of his lips.

“I want you again. I want more.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo wasn't sure whether it had been the Force-only-knew how many years alone in the desert, scavenging what she could from whatever she could find just to stay alive, or whether it was simply in her fiery nature to take what she wanted, but he couldn't help but notice that Rey kissed and touched and moved with a hunger which threatened to consume. He was no stranger to being swallowed whole – by darkness, by rage, by regret – but losing himself had never felt quite so wonderful before. Rey's hands moved over him, spreading heat like wildfire in their wake as they unfastened his belt, then stripped him of his tunic. It got caught on his corded biceps for a moment, while he, in turn, fumbled with her belt. _Dammit_ , why had she felt the need to get dressed again? It had taken him long enough to get her out of her yards and yards of belts and linen the first time. Eventually, though, the lengths of leather fell away from around her, his 'saber clattering to the ground with them, and he was finally able to shake his arms free of his tunic before scooping her up against him to hang astride the width of his hips.

In the chaotic haze of lust and need which clouded their bond, Kylo caught glimpses of the ideas which flickered through Rey's mind: the wall, the floor, the press of cold permasteel, the bruises blossoming on palm-heels and knees. His large hands tightened around her, one finding the curve of her ass and the valley in the fabric of her leggings, which he could follow under to the hot place at the apex of her legs. He pulled her down against his erection as his fingers wandered, grinding his hips against her while they kissed with a raw and furious passion. He had asked himself whether it was acceptable to want to devour a sexual partner the way he wanted to devour Rey, but now he could feel the power of her mirroring want, and his uncertainty melted away. Who cared what was acceptable, what was _normal_ , when Rey wanted him too, _'again', 'more'_?

His hand flew out behind her, trusting her to keep herself tethered securely to his body, as he blindly fumbled for the 'fresher door's release button. At last, his fingers found the raised circle of ridged metal, and his brain vaguely registered the hiss as the door slid open before he carried her inside to deposit her against the long, matte, black vanity that lined one side of the small room. With his hands free to wander again, he started making short work of the obnoxious number of linen wraps coiled around her, winding and winding as his tongue ravaged her mouth, until he could toss them away into obscurity somewhere behind him. Finally, he was able to tug her thin, white tunic off over her head and feel the searing kiss of her burning skin against his body again when he closed his arms around her.

✦ ✦ ✦

It was just like thinking there were too many stars to see, wasn’t it? Something else she’d never had her fill of, and she wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, where this relentless hunger had sprung from. She _knew_ hunger, she always had, and she knew the greed and gusto that came with finally having it satisfied. It was exhilarating to consume, but it was also dangerous. Fire consumed, and ravaged and burned, and that was a sort of destruction, wasn’t it? A fire eventually burned itself out. What she felt was very much like fire, licking across her skin, a sweet ache, and she listened as her belt came loose, dropping with his ‘saber to the floor. It was joined by his tunic, and then she found herself being lifted, legs automatically coming around his waist to hold herself there, arms looping around his neck.

She could feel his presence glancing over her thoughts, seeing all the various manifestations of her lust, and she also felt a chagrined heat rising to her face, too late to suppress anything she’d already thought of. The fit of his hand against her curves, and in the pulsing valley of her leggings, thrummed a deep chill across her ribs, and she lost a heavier sigh into the kiss she was delving hungrily into. _Did_ it make sense? She could feel everything she was broadcasting being reflected right back, and it was so easy to forget every other thought in her head and just race headlong toward the glow of starlight she knew would burn brighter and brighter the longer they stayed this close together. But if it was so tempting not to resist it, then didn’t that mean she was _supposed_ to resist it? Wasn’t that exactly what the Jedi taught?

Truthfully, the teachings of the Jedi had been distant from her mind for several blissful hours now. That was some sort of sign, wasn’t it? An indication of some failing. How far could she allow herself to be lost before she was lost completely, irrevocably? What would that look like? Some primal part of her burned to find out, just like some primal part of her wanted to chase this lust further and further, and pay no mind to what Kylo could see in her unlocked mind. A part of her wanted him to see. She’d never felt more secure than she did when she was wrapped around him, with their minds equally as entwined, free to explore their passion. Another part of her thought that maybe he shouldn’t see – maybe those were the very things she was meant to overpower. A real Jedi would. A real Jedi would have control. Only a starved, desert animal would give in to the desire for ‘again,’ and ‘more.’

Hearing the hiss of the door opening behind her, she clutched herself to his torso, groaning in frustration at the push of his crystal-hard cock. She felt herself being placed on a surface that was just as hard, and her linen wraps were coming loose, and then the white tunic. A new prickle of sweat began to break across her skin, heat conflicting against need conflicting against reason, and she flicked an urgent gaze across Kylo’s face, holding herself still from where she’d pulled back to let the tunic be discarded. It was irritating, hosting this new flicker of fear. Fear of the things she might do, of what was right and what wasn’t, of how she was _supposed_ to feel, and how she felt. Dragging her eyes down the length and breadth of his torso, feeling her own tighten with the need to slide up against him, she brought her fingers to his shoulders instead, in that curled brace that could either push or pull. There was, suddenly, a route to vent her confusion, her panting desire and her raw frustration, and that was in narrowing a challenging glare at the long face in front of her.

“Are you doing this to me?” she accused bluntly, aware of no other reasonable explanation. It was easier to accept than the alternative – that she just _wanted_ him, that she really was a scavenger at heart, hungry and claiming and fearless. Maybe he was at fault; maybe it was his influence that had such a hold on her. He did have a remarkable, masterful use of the Force, after all, as she’d witnessed. “It’s dangerous. It’s not fair. You’re doing this, aren’t you?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Rey's hands were at his shoulders again, keeping the space between them; it gave him an incredible view down at her breasts as her chest rose and fell beneath heavy breaths, and his tongue flickered across his lips as he prepared himself to dive down and cover them in hot, ravenous kisses. Something about the tension in her fingers made him stop though, and his predatory gaze slid up across the blades of her flushed collarbones and her swollen, pouted lips to find her eyes.

Her question brought a deep, huff of laughter to his lips, and he couldn't hold back the way they turned upwards at the corners as he peered down at her. Did _she_ know what she was doing to _him_? His heart was pounding out of his chest, as hard as it had during any fight for his life, his neck was crusted with his own dried and flaking blood, yet still, he wanted more. He would never stop wanting more.

He was about to tell her so, the idea of stealing down to mouth at her rosy nipples blossoming once again in his brain, until the stern set to her jaw and the challenge in her steely eyes made him pause. Confusion laced his thoughts and he sent glancing beads of consciousness along the gossamer threads of their bond until his mind brushed hers. He could feel her fear, her panic, and it filled his stomach with lead, dragging the smile from his face with it as it fell.

"Are you serious?" he choked, the lightness not quite dissipating from his tone until the gravity of her accusation had settled fully in the depths of his soul.

His lips parted, his eyes wide and searching as they roamed her face. She _was_ serious. She was seriously asking him if he was forcing this on her, the passion, the closeness, the oneness, the desire. She felt it too, as palpably as he did – he had sensed it through the bond, her feelings echoing his in perfect harmony – and now she was denying its legitimacy. The realization hit with a stab of pain that made him gasp, his dark brows drawing together in an agonized line.

Leaving her on the counter, he took a step back, out from between her legs, then another, until a maw of empty space gaped between them. He could feel the familiar, cold fingers of hurt reaching up his spine to cool his clammy skin.

"Is that what you think? Is that what you think of me?"

After everything they had said and promised, with their mouths and their minds, while they'd been locked in each other's arms and bathed in starlight, did she honestly believe that he was capable of such deceit?

He could feel the darkness swirling around him in the Force, beckoning seductively to the anger which always lurked just beneath his unstable surface, always waiting to be unleashed like crackling, red plasma from the cracked and bleeding heart of a kyber crystal. His chest was tight, painfully tight, and there was a bitter lump in his throat which wouldn't be swallowed away.

With a sudden burst of anguish, Kylo turned and swung his fist until it collided with cold, black, permasteel on the opposite side of the narrow room to Rey. His knuckles crunched sickeningly, but the pain was cleansing; it washed through him, feeding the darkness, and helping to dissipate the rage. Not rage at her, he realized, as he breathed heavily, staring blankly at the wall he'd just assaulted; rage at himself, for allowing himself to become the kind of monster she could believe capable of such manipulation. She believed he was capable of manipulating her the way Snoke had manipulated him: using her to fulfill his own twisted power play, bending her to his will to keep his own fantasies afloat, and raping her mind until she didn't know what was real and what was not.

It made him feel sick, because he _had_ been that monster once, or well on the way to becoming it, at least. And she had saved him. She had saved him. _She_ had saved him.

His lip trembled as his eyes swam, and he was suddenly very glad that his wide shoulders and a curtain of black hair blocked his face from her view.

✦ ✦ ✦

If it _was_ his doing, then he would own up to it, right? He would take proud credit for what he had been able to do; he would claim ownership over the conniving way he had, in fact, made her his pet. Why wouldn’t he want to gloat in how he had melted her iron will down to something pliable, something she should be ashamed of? The shame was a nagging voice in the back of her head, something only half real. It was the light of a dying glowpanel compared to the luminous heat of what they had discovered between them. Her doubt was just as flimsy; it didn’t want to hold itself up in the face of how happy she was. The happiest she’d ever been, if she could admit it, but she _couldn’t_ , right? How could she admit that her greatest happiness was taking place while she wore the guise of a prisoner, aboard the enemy flagship, sequestered with the Supreme Leader who had, at one time, been bent on the destruction of everything she held dear? How could she admit the traitorous truth that what they held between them felt more dear than anything she’d found up to this point?

How could she even hold it at all? What if it fell apart? As much as it would hurt, a part of her hoped he would confess, that he would deride her where she sat and reveal that every word and every caress was a figment of a greater manipulation. Then, at least, she wouldn’t have to admit that any of it originated within her. None of it would be real, and she wouldn’t feel it thundering so heavily in her chest. Contention, as she already knew, was easier. A fight was always easier. His rage and disdain would be easier. Keeping her gaze fixed on his face, she shivered to feel the brush of his mind against her own, and then to find that he met what he saw with shock. As if he was genuinely stunned by the possibility, and she watched as he stepped away, her own brow creasing in confusion. He looked like he’d been bitten, and she dropped her fingers to curl around the edge of the counter, quivering as the space opening between them exhaled a cool breath against her.

It wasn’t about what she _thought_ , it was about what it was, and what else could it be? She could feel the gathering front of darkness even before it began to crowd the energy of the Force, and she felt her own chest tightening, trying to smother the confusion inside it, and her frantic pulse, and she was sure she could feel the fuming parabola of his intent a split second before his fist flew forward. The crack of his knuckles against permasteel made her flinch, not realizing that she was sliding off the counter until she had already stepped across to where he stood. There was no wince of fear that he was going to weaponize that same rage against her; the way it ached in her own mind could only be interpreted as an outburst of hurt, not real fury. Hurt that she had caused, which was not at all the trigger she had meant to fire, and she reached to lay a hand on his arm and carefully turn him to face her.

Ripples of confusion and anger bled together through the bond, but mostly it was pain, and she could glimpse the trembling of his lips, and feel the disbelief that swam aimlessly, and she looked down to graze her fingers over the hand he’d pummeled into the wall, the pain of the abused skin and bone weaving with the pain of the impulse that had fueled the action. She knew she was wrong – no matter how much easier it would be to have it all cast as a lie, it was rooted too deeply within her to be cheaply discarded. She felt it in the marrow of her bones, too much in her own blood to be a dream or a lie, though her wary mind would have chosen either. Her heart, however, wanted only to smooth away the darkness she’d provoked, that she’d been sure he would claim his allegiance to once again. He hadn’t, and the hurt she felt softly beating across the bond spoke to her in a way that only the hurt of a human heart could. A humanity she kept finding herself testing, wanting to preemptively prepare herself for the moment it would be swept away, but he only kept proving to her what she already knew.

“I don’t know what I think,” she murmured gently, feeling a helpless burn in her own eyes. It was half true, and she bit the corner of her lip to keep it from beginning to quiver, eventually putting forth the other half of what was troubling her. “I think I’m in love with you, and I don’t know what that means. I can’t make it stop.”

Nothing was making it stop: not putting physical distance between them, not summoning her righteous fury, and not the violent darkness she could feel eddying in the Force. It only made her want to draw him back out of it, or else stay there with him until they could find a way out together. In all scenarios, she wanted to be nowhere but at his side, carefully taking his bigger hand between her two palms to try and focus a restorative glow of energy there.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo could sense Rey moving from her spot on the counter, felt the warm glow of her Signature close behind him, yet he still somehow managed to flinch when her hand brushed the bare skin of his arm. She wanted him to turn to face her but, for a moment, he resisted her, not wanting to look at her and risk seeing his distorted soul reflected back at him from her wary eyes. Her touch was persistent, though, and he found himself acquiescing to her silent requests once again, as though his body was eager to bow to her every wish, even as his wounded ego shied away.

Even so, he didn't look at her. He couldn't look at her. He was scared of what he would see. Instead, he stared resolutely at the floor as he felt her jumbled emotions churning against the borders of his consciousness. He couldn't make out what she was thinking – not clearly – and he cringed at the idea of pushing any deeper after her accusations. It was limbo. He was caught there, held by her touch but reluctant to allow himself to hope. However, when she spoke again, her words took his breath away. _I think I'm in love with you._ His gaze flew to hers then, clouded with disbelief, even as his heart ached desperately to see truth waiting for him there.

And he did. See the truth of her words. The confusion, too, and the apprehension, but beneath them, guileless, brave honesty. That was Rey. Fearless. Far more so than him. He felt it too. Of course he did, but it had taken Rey's particular brand of fearlessness to put voice to it first.

Kylo sniffed, blinking back the prickling in his eyes and the back of his throat, as Rey took his injured hand between hers. She was gentle, tender, cradling the quickly-swelling knuckles beneath her palms and concentrating bright, light Force energy around them. His brow furrowing again, he closed his fingers around hers, trying to steal back her attention.

"Don't," he said gruffly – more gruffly than he'd meant to – with a voice rough like sandpaper and brimming with emotion. "I need the pain. I need it to remind me who I am—" He gulped. "And who I nearly became."

He took a deep breath, then slowly let his fingers lace through hers, his gaze fixed on the place where they twined together.

"Me too, you know,” he added haltingly. “With you."

✦ ✦ ✦

It was all wrong, the timing was completely artless and unrefined, which, if nothing else, was at least an accurate reflection of how she generally functioned. She seemed to have a knack for sabotaging her own pursuit of joy, and she once again found herself in a situation with no clue of what she was actually doing. Like leaping pell-mell into the cockpit of the _Falcon_ , or wandering into the dark of Maz’s castle just to find herself accidentally tumbling through visions, or wielding a lightsaber in a snowy forest against a much more powerful enemy. Always fumbling, and that was how she felt as the words fell candidly from her lips. Never graceful. Nearly giving up her virtue against the wing of a First Order TIE, surrendering her freedom on a whim, professing her desperate affection in a _refresher_ – she felt like she was traveling blind. Not only traveling but occasionally swinging blind, lashing out as if to gain a sense of her surroundings. Inflicting harm in the process, taking two steps back for every one forward. Perhaps the only step that would make sense would be for Kylo to dismiss her from his presence altogether.

He didn’t. He was meeting her wide gaze with his own, and he wasn’t shoving her away or refusing the truth of her words or demanding an end to everything they’d begun to build. He was staying right where he was, allowing her to stand right where she was, as if the only misstep had been her channeling an unschooled funnel of light into his swollen knuckles. Releasing his hand quickly, startled by the roughness of his voice, she glanced up to watch his explanation be spoken, and then looked back down where their fingers were being drawn together. Pain could be functional, unfortunately, undeniably, and so she didn’t raise an argument. That didn’t make it any easier to allow him to feel it, however, and even if she wouldn’t be allowed to try and mend it, she could still share in it. If it was his then it could also be hers, and she focused instead on allowing herself to simply feel, acknowledging its dark pulse.

“I know that’s not who you are,” she resisted softly, because what she’d said before was still true, too: she could see him. She could see who he was and she could feel it in the flow of energy between them, across the trembling threads of the bond.

The words that came next jolted her gaze back up from where she’d been studying their linked fingers, a puzzled expression writing itself across her face. She could feel the depths of her own attachment, but there was no reason to think it should be returned. Just as she hadn’t expected that he would mirror back her boundless passion, but he had proven her wrong then, too. He had reflected back everything she’d dared to show, in full, and she blinked as this latest enigma was returned to her as well. It felt unattached to everything he’d explained to her about Force bonds – just because two souls were mysteriously connected didn’t mean they had to feel anything more than companionable understanding, right? If even that. What she felt far surpassed anything reasonable, in every facet of their relationship, so far. What were the chances that it was all reflected back, like starlight on the sea?

“I’m sorry,” she offered after a beat of silence, both for intercepting his pain and for having spurred it in the first place, giving his fingers an anxious twitch of a squeeze. Then it was a fumbling attempt at making sense of what she had heard, stumbling with every word added, heart fluttering. “But you don’t have to say that. If you don’t mean it, I mean. I mean – because it doesn’t make sense, and we don’t know what it means. I don’t know. I meant everything. You’re making me lose my mind.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Just the touch of her hand against his was soothing. Although his knuckles still throbbed dully, the little twitches and squeezes of her fingers around his ran straight to his heart, mending the true pain which had been struck there. The jumble of words pouring forth from her lips helped him to understand what had prompted her cutting accusation, and slowly the heavy press of self-loathing began to lessen. She was right; this feeling between them didn't make sense (although it _was_ real, of that much he was sure), and he didn't know how to deal with it any better than she apparently did, except for holding on and letting it take him where it willed.

He could feel her fear again, her apprehension, but this time it made sense. It wasn't fear of a person – not really. It was the fear he himself had felt when he'd first experienced the irresistible tug of her Light, drawing him towards her, out of his control. It was the fear of losing one's own self. Except he hadn't lost himself, had he? He had found the parts of him he'd been subconsciously trying to suffocate and force to submit – not the weakness he'd always perceived in Ben Solo but the strength, the conviction, the passion, the playfulness. She'd shown him who he could be, who he was meant to be, and the love he felt for her was the beacon guiding his way as he stumbled along this uncharted path.

What there was between them... it couldn't be bad. It didn't feel bad. Terrifying, yes, but _right_. All Rey needed to do was trust her senses and she would understand that too. Screw the galaxy and everything anyone else had to say about who got to love. Screw anyone who said that people like them – a Jedi and a monster – couldn't feel this way, _shouldn't_ feel this way. They were wrong. _This_ was right. He could feel it, and she would too, as soon as she let go of her fears. He would be patient, and if the walls of his chambers had to bear the brunt of his temper along the way because of it, so be it. Patience was the least she deserved in return for her rehabilitating acceptance.

"I've never lied to you, Rey," he reminded her quietly, his gaze flickering between their twined fingers and her warm, hazel eyes. He took a deep breath, feeling the residual darkness in his body retreating into dormancy as the cool, recycled air filled his lungs. She had hurt him, and true to form he had lashed out, but he could survive the pain and perhaps even learn to control his rage as long as there was hope that she could eventually bring herself to trust him.

"We should get in the shower," he said after a moment, eyeing the bare skin across her collarbones and shoulders, pricked with fine hairs stood on point, where the cool air pumping out from the overhead vents kissed her. The idea of hot water cascading down over them, cleansing them while she was wrapped in his arms, so they could step out anew, was achingly appealing. His body was still laced with the grime and the sweat of the time before Rey loved him. Now, there could be only _after_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for beta reading for us! ❤️❤️❤️


	13. Give

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last hair tie came loose between his large fingers and he set it aside with the other two as he watched the warm water wash her hair down her back in a sleek, dark, meandering river.
> 
> "I like your hair down," he murmured, not really speaking to her but simply acknowledging the thought as it flitted through his mind. It reminded him of when she'd come to him on the _Supremacy_ , the lower half of her hair loose around her shoulders. He had caught the scent of it on the recycled air in the turbolift as they'd hurtled towards Snoke, when she had told him she had seen his future and promised to help him achieve it.
> 
> Now, when he saw her hair loose around her, he would think of the way it looked against the buttery skin of her shoulders and how strands of it snaked down her front under the water's flow to caress her rosy, pink nipples.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 

He’d never lied to her – that had been true the first time he’d told her, and it was still true now. It didn’t seem to matter how feverishly Rey tried to pick apart Kylo’s words or his actions or his motivations; there was never a lie to be revealed. There was never the cold comfort of realizing that she was right, that he _had_ been manipulating her; that they could fall easily back into the roles of adversaries, and nothing more. There was only, once again, her flourishing confusion, and the warm pull of wanting to trust. He hadn’t betrayed it, despite being provoked to do so. He didn’t seem to be letting go of his belief in what they felt, one finger at a time, no matter how much fear or frustration she needled it with. He was still steadily there, patient and constant, like her own heartbeat, and she glanced up to meet his darker eyes. He had never lied to her.

Looking askance at the shower, reminded of why they had originally come in at all, she slowly unwound her fingers, releasing a broader palm to carefully step in closer, reaching for the leather of the pants he wore. Hot water would always be an irresistible temptation, especially now, her freckled skin still chilled from the whirring overhead vents. Unfastening and then mindfully rolling down the leather beneath her fingers, finding that he had evidently forgone underwear in his mad rush earlier, she gently guided it down the firm muscle of his legs, only pausing when she reached his feet, bending to take an ankle in her hands, encouraging him to bring his weight off of his booted foot so she could slide it free. And then the other, stripping the pants free and setting them aside, rising as she wandered her gaze in open marvel over his calves. Over his knees, his hips, his chiseled torso and then back up over his chest, following with brushes of her fingertips. It never stopped being a captivating sight, momentarily able to forget her chill.

The sweat covering her own skin was of all different sorts: panic, anxiety, primal fear, brutal fury, aching lust. All gathered now to be washed away, just to be gleaming again across her collarbones and cheeks before too many days had passed, she was sure, although maybe that didn’t have to be true anymore. Maybe fear and fury did not have to be the daily sweats that broke across her frustrated skin. Maybe panic and anxiety did not have to be the taken-for-granted nicks and chinks in her thoughts. Slowly kicking out of her own boots, she let her fingers find the edge of her leggings, beginning to shimmy them down her legs, eager to be under a spray of searing water with the huskier body she’d just finished undressing.

“Go ahead, I’m right behind you.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo's hands fell to his sides as Rey undressed him. It wasn't the mad passion that had gripped them both when they'd entered the 'fresher, but a slow, considered approach to achieve the task at hand. Every movement, every brush of her skin or tug on his pants or boots was drawn out, elongated and determined. He let his chin drop to watch her with acute focus as she stooped in front of him, stripping him until he stood naked before her. It felt like a reflection of how bare and vulnerable his heart was in her hands. Just like his heart had quavered at her revelation, he couldn't help but shiver as her fingertips trailed up his thighs and across his body, finding all his ridges and valleys, following the fault-lines of silvery scars and the cords of battle-hardened muscle. His tongue flickered across his lips again once she had straightened, his gaze raking across her face, then sliding lower to where her fingers were starting to work on her leggings. His cock had barely softened since it had been nestled close against the apex of her thighs while she'd rested on the vanity, and it twitched in interest now.

"No," he murmured, his voice squeezed into a rough syllable by the tightness in his throat, as he descended to his knees before her and stilled her hands with his larger ones. "First, let me..."

Lifting one hand from her thigh, he flicked two fingers offhandedly in the direction of the shower, where tendrils of Force energy started hot water cascading down inside the cubical – a luxury only enjoyed by a select few aboard First Order starships. Droplets spattered the glass and steam billowed behind the panes, seeping out into the 'fresher, as Kylo's fingers took over the task of rolling down Rey's leggings and underwear. With every fresh inch of skin revealed, Kylo pressed a kiss to Rey's thighs, alternating legs, until he could coax first one foot then the other from the floor to slip the pants off. He worked as steadily and determinedly as she had, taking his time with the long, toned limbs, until she was bare. His back straightened then, and he let his palms run up the backs of her legs to cup her ass as he leaned in to trail his lips across her abdomen. His eyes fluttered shut and he momentarily let his head turn, so that his cheek rested against her smooth, flat stomach, just reveling in her closeness for a moment, before he rose to stand again and held out a hand for her to take as he moved towards the shower.

✦ ✦ ✦

She could undress herself quickly – with precisely the opposite level of care with which she’d undressed Kylo’s bottom half – and she wasn’t the least bit bothered at having to do so. She didn’t make it that far, however, blinking instead as her hands were stilled and that rough voice was once again before her, arresting her attention, glancing up only to find that he was falling to his knees.

He didn’t need to; she didn’t exactly deserve to have him lavish her after the aggressive way she’d struck out. But, just like he hadn’t demanded that she leave his sight, he wasn’t turning his back on her now, and she held the breath that rose in her throat as he took over the mundane task, which now no longer felt quite so perfunctory, of sliding her leggings down over taut muscle. Interrupting her study of him just to look up at the sound of water spattering against glass, and the hot, cloying sensation of steam beginning to unfurl, she could only spend a moment in vague wonder. She struggled to cup even a handful of the Force in her palm, and here he was again, proving its infinite, subtle, effortless applications. A distracted flick of his fingers and it was done. Trailing her curious eyes over those efficient fingers sent a quiver flitting through her thighs, shifting where she stood and then feeling her eyes flutter shut as his lips found the skin that had been hidden beneath her leggings. Soft and warm, and she felt herself quivering, obediently lifting one foot free, and then the other, sighing.

It wasn’t the first time his gaze had roamed over her naked body, or even the second, but she still felt a blossom of heat across the top of her chest once she was bare. The same vulnerability she’d felt shivering through Kylo’s heavier frame moments before, and she let her fingers find his shoulders as his hands slid up the backs of her thighs, no longer with the skittish tension of uncertainty tightening her knuckles. Just a longing to be close, to feel and know his skin, and the low, quiet pulse in the center of her hips stirred as his mouth drew across her torso. The press of his cheek against that same spot urged her in a step closer, just long enough to graze her fingers over the top of his head before she felt his weight shifting, his full height resuming.

Slipping her fingers into his hand without a second thought, she became aware again of the flood of steam beckoning them into the luxury of a hot stream of water. A luxury she knew better than to take for granted, surely not one granted to everyone aboard the destroyer, wincing at the first light spray that found her waiting skin. Then she broke into a bright, spontaneous laugh as the full shock of steaming water impacted her body, such an unfamiliar sensation, like a million hot, tiny stars bombarding her. Maybe it had been a while.

✦ ✦ ✦

The hot water felt heavenly against Kylo's grimy, sweat-stained skin, but nothing was as heavenly as the laugh that escaped Rey's lips. The sound of it banished the last of the weight from his heart and he breathed out a sigh as he felt it lift. He looked down at her, feeling the corners of his lips twitching fondly at the sight of her basking in the cascade.

The shower cubicle was large, stretching across the whole far wall of the narrow 'fresher, but the space felt spine-tinglingly intimate with the pair of them inhabiting it. Kylo could feel water bouncing off of Rey's skin and onto him, while a steady stream of it was directed down his arm onto her, from the ball of his shoulder to the hollow of her back, where his hand had come to rest.

Carefully, he maneuvered himself around the small space until he was standing behind her, lightly placing his large hands at her hips to guide her back against him. The shaft of his erection, now fully hard again, fit perfectly against the cleft of her ass, and he let it rest there while his palms slid slowly across her body, feeling the lines of her ribs and the swell of her breasts as he eased away the sweat and dirt and apprehension. His chin lowered until his lips found the soft place behind her ear, and he pressed a kiss there before straightening and letting his hands glide upwards, across her shoulders and neck to the back of her head, where he began to untie the three buns there.

✦ ✦ ✦

The simplest things were almost always the most fascinating, the most riveting, and now was no different: the flicking of water against her skin which, up until now, had been untouched by much of anything at all. Just the dirt and sweat she habitually wore, but she could already feel the water rinsing and sluicing through the grimy tracks. She hadn’t thought to let her swiftly-arranged hair back down, which she only realized when the loose wisps of it began to curl under the sliding touch of hot water and the breath of steam. The sigh from behind her indicated that the water was having the same effect on Kylo’s body, which she knew, from being pressed against it, was also sheening with sweat.

The cubicle was large, generous, much larger than she would have expected for a box meant only for showering in, but she also knew that she had no basis for knowing what to _expect_. Not when it came to First Order flagships, and the private quarters of the Supreme Leader. Not so large that they couldn’t be flush together anyway, however, which she felt first as the sprinting of water down from what must’ve been Kylo’s shoulder, spritzing into the small of her back. A tickled quiver danced up the back of her ribs, but then she was melting back into the shape of his hand.

The full shadow of his weight was behind her, too, but then it wasn’t only a shadow, a hovering presence, but something she was being solidly drawn back against, letting go of a purring murmur as she was. It was a new variety of warmth, accented as it was by the cascading of water and the way it made the guiding touch of his hands feel heavy and slick. They fit, just as they had in every previous iteration of bumping up close together, and she wiggled herself enthusiastically back against the hard ridge of his cock where it was nestled against her. A pressure she couldn’t stop savoring, but then she was distracted by the glide of his wet palms over her ribs, up over the small, peaked swells of her breast, and another velvety sigh escaped at the touch. It was impossible to differentiate between what was the spark of individual water droplets, tiny electric bolts, and what was the marker of a shiver or a chill, but the warming effect was the same, and she tipped her head forward as she felt his hands working there to undo her buns.

She wasn’t positioned in a useful way for letting her hands wander, which was what they itched to do, but she also didn’t want to disrupt the work his fingers were doing, allowing her own hands to find their way behind her, greeting the sides of his thighs. Solid contours that she was happy to thoughtfully stroke on both sides, following the rippling tracks made by rivulets of water, and then tracing back up, feeling the muscles of her own body tighten gently, willing him closer, making an unrelated observation as she did. “Does everyone in the First Order have one of these?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo loved flying: sitting in the cockpit of a fighter or shuttle and feeling it twist and turn under his skillful command. It was a pleasure that had always been with him. They'd joked, when he'd been a boy, that it ran in his blood. Even after he'd severed ties with who he'd used to be, he'd never lost his taste for piloting. There was nothing quite like feeling the swooping in his stomach created by punching through the effects of gravitational pull with the sleek body of a starship. At least, he'd believed there wasn't, until he felt the slide of Rey's fingertips up his thighs, casting his insides into a heady tailspin as she coaxed him closer against her.

His cock was pressed tightly between them now, its head collecting droplets of water from her lower back, and when she spoke it took him a moment to grasp the fact that she was talking about the shower, as opposed to the appendage in question.

"No," he replied, teasing out the lowest of her three buns and letting the hair splay out across her wet shoulders. He reached aside and placed the tie on a small, in-built shelf set back in the shower's black wall, beside the various bottles containing his hygiene products. "There are sonics in the troop quarters and most of the officers' chambers, but a few of the more senior commanders have water." He was sure Hux had one, even though he'd never been inclined to ask after (or even really think about) the other man's personal grooming habits. "This one can be either," he added, gesturing towards the control panel on the wall, which had a setting for sonic and a setting for water, as well as a useful drying function.

Bathing in water had been one of creature comforts he'd been most reluctant to leave behind from his old life – his childhood in Chandrila had been full of little luxuries he'd taken for granted until he'd been sent away – so, when he'd been offered quarters on board the _Finalizer_ with a wet cubical, rather than just a sonic, he'd jumped at the opportunity, despite the guilt it had agitated in him for bowing to the craving left over from the life he'd rejected.

"I don't suppose you've had much chance to enjoy water showers before," he said, as he eased the second bun out from its tie and ran his fingers through the damp strands. He had tried to sound casual, but he hadn't been able to hide the question in his tone. He wanted to know more about her, about her life, her day to day – the things she liked to do, the things that brought her comfort, the things which made her smile like she had smiled when they'd stepped beneath the shower head and she'd felt the hot water first wash over her skin. He wanted to know all of it and memorize it so he could give her everything she liked, everything she wanted, so he could give her every reason to stay and trust him and surrender to the love she said she felt.

The last hair tie came loose between his large fingers and he set it aside with the other two as he watched the warm water wash her hair down her back in a sleek, dark, meandering river.

"I like your hair down," he murmured, not really speaking to her but simply acknowledging the thought as it flitted through his mind. It reminded him of when she'd come to him on the _Supremacy_ , the lower half of her hair loose around her shoulders. He had caught the scent of it on the recycled air in the turbolift as they'd hurtled towards Snoke, when she had told him she had seen his future and promised to help him achieve it.

Now, when he saw her hair loose around her, he would think of the way it looked against the buttery skin of her shoulders and how strands of it snaked down her front under the water's flow to caress her rosy, pink nipples. He suddenly wanted to be that hair, if only to touch those nipples, so he let his arms slip back around her, as he pressed in close, fitting his front to her back, and covered her two pert, little breasts with his palms, kneading the flesh there until he felt hard peaks forming under his touch, as he nuzzled the side of his cheek against hers.

✦ ✦ ✦

It would’ve been believable, a requirement of the machine that was the First Order: why wouldn’t all of the pawns maneuvering about on the ship be buffed clean with pure water, polished to a shine like the halls through which they passed? A tremendous luxury, which she couldn’t stop realizing, but any steady stream of water was a luxury. A mirage, a dream, and the only time she’d seen such a lush flux of water was in her dreams. Outside of that shimmering ocean, there was only rain, which she hadn’t been able to relish until Luke’s island, and water collected in troughs, or what she carried in her metal canteen on Jakku. There was never water being piped straight through the walls, like right now, for the sole purpose of streaming down upon a body fortunate enough to bask beneath it.

She’d experienced sonics: the crisp ultrasonic vibrations that neatly cleared away the accumulated grime, feeling almost like she was molting a skin, revealing a new one underneath. Before the Resistance’s sonics, however, she’d made do with dirt itself for fighting sticky sweat. Abrasive and uncomplicated, it could be used when the alternative was nothing at all. She hadn’t had _nothing_ – she’d scrapped bits and pieces from the ‘freshers of long-fallen starships, but that didn’t mean functionality was guaranteed. It served mostly, like her withering nightbloomer, as a reminder of what could be, if only she kept searching, and hoping, and waiting. There were always Happabore troughs…

But water – an unbroken assault of hot, clear, pressurized water – that was an anomaly she was almost entirely unfamiliar with. It was exhilarating, breathtaking, and of course Kylo’s unit could be either, contingent, she assumed on mood: sonic or water. She blinked through the water trickling down the bridge of her nose, bright beads of it catching on her lashes, pearling down her temples, as she studied the interior of the cubicle.

“Never like this,” she confirmed, not bothering to make any false claims toward an extravagance that she’d never truly had. A steaming jet of water was an extravagance. Infinitely more enjoyable with a partner, she was sure, eyes falling shut as Kylo’s wet palms engulfed her breasts.

Leaving her hair down had been, the first time, bold instinct: that’s where it fell, and so that’s where it had stayed, and that’s what she’d wanted to present to Kylo when she’d come to him on the _Supremacy_. Everything had been shifting, growing, changing, stars drawing themselves into new constellations, and she had glimpsed something beyond the lifestyle of the desert. She’d _become_ something beyond it, just as she’d known he could become something more. And then, when she’d slammed the door on their connection, she’d clutched at what she knew best, what hadn’t ever fallen through before. White linens; three buns. Growth had hurt. 

“I’m going to keep it down.”

Now, she could feel that same hair, longer, spilling over her shoulders, tangling in sleek threads against his kneading hands, and she pressed herself back into his chest. The pattering of her heart, which seemed to have naturally spiked as soon as she’d stepped into the controlled deluge, was murmuring its excitement for something else. The groping of his palms and fingers coursed a restless delight through her, as smoothly as the water coursing over the surface of her skin, and she curled her own fingers around the bulk of the backs of his thighs, fidgeting against his hips while also itching herself into his hands.

She’d already declared her desire, feral and rampant as it was, and more than once; it would have been laughable to try and mask it now. There was no point, because it had already proven that it simmered out of her control, and she turned her head to snatch Kylo’s nearby lips in a kiss. A skim of wet on wet, just like her legs, which she had to keep from spinning her abruptly around to dive fully into him. Only because she was loath to lose the caress of his oversized palms, and she peeked her tongue forward to trace along the seam of his lips, tasting. A tilt of her hips and a lift of her weight up onto her toes allowed her to begin finagling the length of his cock down between them, wanting that hard, treasured ingot between her thighs.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo's lips felt like they had been actively waiting for Rey's to make contact again, calling out to her and aching for the sweet relief that only her kiss could bring, since the moment they'd parted. He'd only meant to stop kissing her for a moment then, only enough time to pull her tunic off over her head, but he'd been disrupted in his aim to return to them quickly. Now, feeling them seek out his mouth again came as a relief. His lips parted, his tongue meeting hers, and he felt that sense of rightness flood him again, as fluid and plentiful as the water which streamed down over them.

The movements of their mouths were as slow and determined as their hands had been when they'd divested each other of their remaining clothes. It was a change of pace but, Kylo realized, no less sensual for it; more so, in fact. It gave him the time to lap up the water droplets which collected at the corners of her mouth and on her cupid's bow, each one infused with the flavor of her skin. He greedily explored the new, slippery landscape of her lips as one hand slid up her front to wrap lightly around her throat. He felt the hard curve of her jaw beneath his thumb and fingertips, and carefully exerted pressure against the bone to keep her head tilted towards him, while his other hand followed the valley at the center of her abdomen downwards until he felt coarse, springy curls against his skin.

He remembered the image he'd seen in her mind earlier, of his hips pressed to her ass, just like they were right now, his cock grinding into the depths of her heat, and he remembered his fervent promise to take her like that. It was a promise which seemed all the closer to being fulfilled when she slid her backside up and down his front to guide his erection down between her thighs. He felt the shaft slide through pillowy folds which were far too slick and glossy to be wet with water alone. He moaned softly into her mouth, his fingers tightening just a little at her jaw, and he thrust himself forwards between her legs, a loving assault from behind, at the same time as his finger curled under her from the front.

"Does this feel good?" he breathed, his fingertips beginning a slow, purposeful swirl while he alternated the pressure of his groin against her behind, creating the most wonderful sliding sensation. _Stars_ , he hoped it felt good for her because it felt like he'd found a little slice of heaven there between her wet thighs.

✦ ✦ ✦

If it was maddening to kiss him quickly, urgently, with no leash on her hunger, then she wasn’t sure what it was to kiss him slowly. _More_ maddening, if it were possible, feeling his lips slide open and the pad of his tongue curling over her own, all under a glaze of sleek, moving water. It was accomplished with the same control they’d used to strip each other of their bottom layers, and just as she’d been able to feel every muscle of his legs and torso in vivid relief, she could now feel the quiver of every dancing drop of water. Where they followed the curve of his full lips, where they met the wet heat of his tongue as she surveyed his mouth, restaking it as her own, and where his taste and her taste became the shared gloss of the streaming water running it all together.

There wasn’t just that point of flickering, smooth heat, however: there was also the hand sliding up over her collarbones to find her throat, and she pulled in a sharp inhale against the new pressure, breathing it back out against his mouth as she sank deeper between his lips. His other flat hand, she realized, was sliding down, over the eager tension of her torso, and lower, which roused another quick breath against his mouth. Her maneuvering against his hips seemed to have been a success, as she felt his rigid shaft fall into place against the nest between her thighs, murmuring heavily at the sensation. Another full, wet slide of skin against skin, and the tingling of heat thanks to the temperature of the water and the billowing steam, but that wasn’t all. Having her body pushed up against him tempted, as she’d already discovered, her own sheen of wet, asking fire, and so it was now, feeling the long muscle of her thighs tighten as she curved through the small of her back. The shower’s water was a lovely addition, but it wasn’t the only reason she was gleaming between the thighs, feeling a braid of heat begin to tightly weave itself up from her hips.

The moan that she tasted as it slid into her mouth from Kylo’s was reason enough to overlap it with one of her own, a mesmerized hum that lifted brightly in surprise as he pushed forward, feeling every muscle in her torso curve and curl in encouragement, sliding herself back against that solid pressure. Lifting her fingers distractedly to find the arm that fit against her torso, she curled one hand there to find leverage, the other coming up to grip the arm attached to the hand at her jaw. There was strength there, too, a tightness against her bones that kept her head tilted into the kiss, and there was also his swirling fingertips against her pulsing flesh, aware of the petals of herself opening like a flower, inviting the attentions being graced there even if they were making her squirm. Wet squirming against wet only enhanced the hot, silky friction, another lesson she had learned, but that didn’t keep her from moving now. Moving back against him, and moving a knee up in a reflexive jerk, and moving her fingers over the arms she was bracing herself against, losing one quickening breath after another as the flurry of glistening, wet sensations bathed her skin in a new flavor of pleasure.

“Yes,” she managed, delighted, and unafraid to let further insights slip free. “But harder. You can be hard, heavy,” and he did possess a rather massive stature, after all, all of which she wanted to feel laid against her, wanting to be totally eclipsed by everything he was, two moons consuming each other in a private pocket of sky. “Heavier. Give me all of you.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo's dark eyelashes fluttered, flicking water droplets out of his eyes, before they settled against his cheeks as he bowed his head to tuck his lips into the crook of her neck. There was something thrilling about her words, about this wild, ferocious creature's surrender to him, the trust she'd placed in him, and he felt the gleeful squirm in his stomach at the images spilling out of her mind into his: his body covering the entirety of hers, dwarfing her against his massive frame, holding her where he needed her, where she needed to be, while he gave her all of himself.

His hand moved back down from her throat, gliding across her peaked nipples once more, before he extended his arm in front of them and his palm found the glistening, black permasteel wall of the cubicle. He moved her then, crowding her forward against it, until his other forearm was trapped between the length of her body and the cool metal. He didn't let the movement interrupt the steady circling of his fingers where they wound down between her legs, or the nestling of his lips at the juncture of her neck, although he did use his newfound purchase against the wall as leverage to tilt her hips back towards his on the next watery slide of his cock between her thighs. The head nudged tantalizingly through folds of lust-soaked skin and he shuddered as the heat of her core seeped out against him, warmer than the steaming cascade from the showerhead above and far more tempting.

He didn't plan to tease himself for long, however.

His voice rumbled confirmation close to the shell of her ear: "I want to. I want to give you all of me." And he did, almost at once, pressing forward in one long, smooth motion to sheathe himself in her again and groaning throatily at the sensation. She was so tight inside, like a vice around his cock, and the way he filled her, as though their bodies were made to fit together like puzzle pieces, gave him need to pause for just a moment, while he tried to remember how the hell to carry on functioning through this kind of bliss.

Once he'd recovered himself, though, his movements became decisive, determined, _hard_ and _heavy_ , as she'd asked for, the heel of his palm pressed flat against her pelvis to hold her exactly where he wanted her to be while his thick fingers curled beneath her.

"Like this?" he breathed, the words barely more than a grunt, as he thrust deep inside her, his broad chest keeping her torso tight against the wall. "Is this what you want, Rey?"

✦ ✦ ✦

It was true, and she couldn’t tell through the frantic pounding of her heart whether she should be ashamed or not: she _did_ want to be crushed beneath him, back to front; she wanted to be covered by the huge brunt of his weight, to have her entire body engulfed under the moving shadow of his massive frame. She wanted his hands pushed roughly against her hips, her spine, the blades of her shoulders, anywhere he needed to press them, the full span of his open hands, in order to hold her where he wanted her. How many years had she spent scrabbling _out_ from the shadow of fallen fighters, taking what she needed and then returning out to where the only force covering her body was the sun? She hadn’t ever wanted to be caught beneath a dangerous weight, to let herself be taken in under the rolling heave of a tremendous, vigorous wave.

But she had also never, until several hours ago, wanted to delve her tongue so ravenously into another person’s mouth, to eat his words and breath and smother herself in the musk of his sweat. She’d never wanted to haul another body against her own, to climb on his hips and ride him until her thighs screamed, or pull him over the top of her and open her legs around the heavy slab of his hips until he’d sheathed his cock in solidly to the hilt. She’d never so brazenly craved an open mouth against her throbbing cunt, begging to be emptied by his long, lapping tongue. She’d never wanted anything like this until she was asking for it, taking it, and following those impulses wherever they led her.

Now they had led her against a cool, slick wall, or at least it felt cool against the fire that was her skin, and she caught a panting breath as her own hands flew up. _Here_ was a hard surface to brace against, and she shoved herself back in shameless impatience as the head of his cock slid against her pulsing, asking folds. He wanted to give her what she was asking for – she heard the words thundering against her ear. Good. He should be giving it now, and she had no qualms about telling him so, but the breath drawn for beratement instead left her as a yelping moan, sliding with the motion that buried him inside her.

Was she supposed to hurt? The initial prick the first time had been easily brushed off, counted among the many bruises and scrapes she inevitably incurred. With how assertively he filled the aching, hollow places inside her, it was hard to imagine pain. Not now, not while everything was stroked in gleaming, hot water, and she braced against the wall just as forcefully as she felt her torso being pinned. His chest was heavy against her back, as it was in dreams, but hotter, with blood pounding through it, and she could feel the gruff pressure against the back of her ribs, making her work for each breath. His hands were decisive and steadfast, the hard pressure of his palm against her pelvis driving her more determinedly back against him. It was its own breed of struggle, a wondrous hybrid of volatile energy, the glow of the magnetic power they shared, hot, fearless need, and _lust_ , lust, lust.

“Kriff, Kylo,” she breathed back, a growl, and then a snarling moan as his fingers curled. The wash of sensation, from top to bottom – gritting her teeth as her cheek pressed into the permasteel, splaying her fingers open against the wet black, breasts squeezed against the wall, his forearm trapped against her hips, where she bucked against his rhythmic fingers – was the answer to his question. She’d never questioned what she needed for survival and she wasn’t going to start now, arching her pinned body to intensify the friction, to feel the texture of his cock grading against the texture of her walls, which clenched in an approving chokehold around his shaft. She spent many of her waking moments wanting to consume, and here was this flagrant need to _be_ consumed, and she knew only that she wanted to drown in him. She wanted to collapse under his gravity, she wanted their energy to wildly fuse and dangerously burn, and she wanted the stars to feel the pull of their passion until the fabric of the galaxy began to fray.

“You have no idea,” she began, a low, breathless murmur, and she meant everything: he didn’t know all the things she wanted, and he didn’t know what he was doing to her, and he didn’t know all the stars he could make her see. But then of course he did know, because the pages of her mind were flung open, just like he surely knew she would climb the wall in front of her if it meant she could take him deeper. “I want everything that’s inside you,” the dark and the light, his blood and his sweat, and his heart, which she had the wayward image of sinking her teeth into, a high-pitched moan springing from her lips, rabid with love. “ _Ky_ lo, oh, _kriff_.”

✦ ✦ ✦

_You have no idea_ , she had said.

 _Oh, but I do_ , he purred back, straight into her mind, and he could feel that she grasped the truth of the fact, almost before he'd had chance to think it himself. He felt all her wants, her desires, and he was determined to give them to her. He would wrap her in a mantle of stars before he was done with her.

His hand slipped down the wall, searching for hers, and when he found it he gripped it tightly as his thrusts grew quicker, lacing his fingers into the gaps she'd left for him against the wet metal. He could feel sweat beading at his temples from the exertion, only to be washed quickly away by the hot water falling from overhead, and he could tell he wasn't going to last long this time, not with the punishing way he was pounding into her, or the heart-stopping feeling of her cunt clenching around him. His fingers began to move faster beneath her, between the warm petals of silky skin between her legs, clumsily circling the little bud there that he'd quickly come to enjoy chasing. This time, his weight against her was keeping her pinned, so she couldn't run from the sensation, and it was a good thing because he could already feel his control faltering.

"Oh, _kriff_ , Rey," he groaned, in an echo of her curse. He shifted his leg slightly between hers, opening her wider, forcing himself deeper. "Oh... kriff..." His eyes screwed shut in the hot darkness cast in the crook of her neck by the cascade of her wet hair. " _Kriff_..." His whole body was shaking, all six foot three inches of it; a mountain set to crumble at the feet of this one incredible, wild, beautiful woman. "Rey... I'm gonna come."

✦ ✦ ✦

He _did_ have an idea; he had the second clearest insight into her own head after herself, although she was beginning to wonder if he couldn’t see clearest of all. Her hidden longings, her overt confusions and frustrations, her conflicting dreams, her loneliness, although that tide in particular had, for the time being, ebbed in startling clarity out of her head. And out of her body, leaving only this fervent new warmth and that aching, glowing connection. It was a simplicity of feeling, of belonging, that she hadn’t experienced before. There had never been a place she fit so perfectly, every contour and curve feeling like it had its place against the body behind her. A huge, hard, heavy body, moving faster against her, and she curled her fingers without hesitation as she felt his hand slide over her own. There were never too many anchors to hold onto, never too many places to seize and grip, and she returned the squeeze as sweat and water ran together in the rivers sliding over her skin, and the taut muscle underneath.

The wet pads of his fingers slipping against that singing bud between her thighs, a circling pressure she couldn’t hope to escape given where she was trapped against the wall, meant that she was swiftly dropping the reins she held on any of her own restraint. If there had been any semblance of restraint at all, really, but that searing pinpoint of contact, and the rough rhythm of his hips plowing into her depths from behind, was pushing her with no mercy right up to the same edge she could feel him teetering on. But her sole demand was the same as it had been the first time; she only wanted to see the imminent explosion of stars if he was right there beside her to see them, too.

He was – not only could she feel it in the mounting tension and trembling of his muscled frame, but he was flat-out telling her so, echoing her curse, and then echoing it again, and she murmured it once more herself when other additions to her vocabulary were forgotten. Hearing her name groaned between those wild expletives sent her into another squirm between his body and the wall, everything within her tightening past the point of resistance, from her toes up to her squeezing fingers, breath coming in shallow sweeps of anticipation. A final, rising moan preceded the violent push into a sea of stars, a massive radiance, lurching against the bulk of his body and the smoothing of his fingers. Squeezing helplessly with every surge of euphoria that pulsed through her, she could feel her hips in their dying dance against the much broader set behind her, riding out the ongoing waves of pleasure that clenched up from her core, each breath a soft moan.

“Oops, me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for beta reading for us! ❤️❤️❤️


	14. Glorious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t you have a scouring brush to use on me? That’s what we used for the dirtiest scrap on Jakku,” a solid, coarse-bristled brush for scraping away grime and rust and all manner of filthy accumulations, to make a piece of salvage look more presentable. It seemed to be an efficient way of cleaning, although she didn’t plan on arguing the use of his bare hands smoothing that milky lather over her freshly-rinsed body. “And I’m pretty dirty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 

If their shared curses and unbridled moans, laced with rising pressure and silvery shivers, hadn't been enough to tip Kylo over the edge, the fluttering of Rey’s walls around his shaft, as he felt ecstasy burst forth in her body and mind, certainly was. His fingers stiffened between her legs, his palm flattening over her mound, and he pulled her back tightly against him, burying himself deep inside her as that same sea of stars he saw in her mind engulfed him too. His eyes were still closed and, with his mind laced with hers, they hurtled together through constellations as his seed pumped out into her, painting her insides and creating a glossy mess at the point where their bodies joined.

A rumble of laughter vibrated spontaneously against her back from deep within his chest as her little “Oops” seeped through the starlight and grounded him back in the moment. His hand withdrew from beneath her, spreading slickness up her lean body as it rose to rest against her ribs. He still had her pressed tightly against the wall, but moving away from her felt like the last thing he wanted to do right then. Instead, he arched his neck down and, nosing aside the curtain of her hair, began pressing gentle kisses along the slope of her shoulder. Gradually, his fingers loosened on hers against the wall of the shower as the need to hold on for dear life lessened, and he let his thumb begin tracing back and forth against the back of her hand.

He could have stayed that way forever, nestled closely against her back, showering her golden skin with kisses as hot water rained down over them. Eventually, though, he felt his cock softening within her and, with a deep sigh of contentment, he shifted backward, the hand at her ribs gliding around to the side of her waist, as he unwrapped himself from around her and gave her space to breathe again. His other hand slid along her arm, down over her shoulder and back as he lightly traced the curves of her, marveling at the body which had already given him such pleasure.

"I made a mess of us," he commented. His voice still had a ragged edge to it, although it didn't completely mask the undercurrent of amusement as he peered down between them to where his fingers played in the river of water that streamed down over the pretty curve of her ass.

✦ ✦ ✦

There was no hope of outlasting the swell of pleasure that they’d spurred up together, and she was grateful to find, again, that it was one they could climb and then fall down together, synchronized. Further proof, if she needed it, that she belonged against no other body, chasing no other heights. Only what she had found upon entering Kylo’s quarters, and regardless of the fact that this was not the first time she’d felt his body shuddering and emptying within her own, or the second, she was just as shocked. Just as bedazzled, as if she’d been robustly filled with molten stars, which didn’t feel at all untrue, if she could assume what molten stars would feel like. Exactly what her body was accepting from his, if she had to guess: a brilliant, infusing warmth from the inside of her body out, a flaming sensation that gradually softened into a tingling, all those million sparks again, from beneath her ears down to her curled toes, and everything in between. The ecstatic hum of her blood felt new all over again, and she spent a moment in distracted wonder, catching the breath that rose and fell through her chest.

A low laugh rumbled against her shoulder blades, vibrating through the slim bones of her ribs, and she let out a gracious sigh as his hand softened away from the bliss-blinded spot between her thighs. It was lovely, she soon discovered, to enjoy the simple weight of his body against her own, that steady presence she’d wanted to be pushed so close against, and her own fingers slowly relaxed under the soothing slide of his thumb. It was necessary to close her eyes for a moment, to swim back up from the magnificent depths into which she’d been plunged, feeling, even under the spray of the shower, like she was awash in starlight.

It was a shame that he had to move at all, ever, although she was able to pull in a deep, long breath when he shifted off of her. Keeping her hands against the wall to sustain some sort of balance, as her spent torso quivered, she willfully dallied for another few dazed moments, enjoying the lingering imprint of the kisses he’d dusted along her shoulder, eventually taking an unsteady step back.

His word didn’t come as a surprise – they couldn’t, when she could _feel_ that mess along the insides of her thighs and in the hot, quietly pulsing core of herself. Warm and slick, which should have made it difficult to differentiate from anything else in the black cubicle, but she could tell, breaking into a coy smile as she tried again to find her center of gravity.

“At least you had the courtesy to make your mess while we were in the shower this time,” she was pleased to chime in, even if she hadn’t been troubled by the water-less location of their previous messes or the fact that she was at least halfway responsible for them. It was hard to feel troubled by anything at all, except for regaining the use of her stunned body, turning to face him and reaching quickly to steady herself on his arm as she did. His fingers gliding over her body made it no easier to stop shivering in silent appreciation, under that persistent warmth, practically feeling herself glow with it as fresh water sluiced down across her shoulders and through her hair. Traipsing her gaze leisurely down his frame, marveling at the gleam of rippling water over his hot skin, she found his face again with a new charge for him to take responsibility for. 

“You also made my body forget how to hold itself up.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Smiling was becoming a habit, Kylo realized with interest as he felt his mouth curling softly up at the corners. He had gone for years without any display of joy reaching his face – indeed, there had been no joy to be felt – but since Rey had dragged the first smile from him, rusty and unpracticed but a genuine reflection of the way she made his heart glow, they had been coming more and more frequently.

It was hard to do anything _but_ smile when she spoke to him with that teasing lilt in her voice, or when she turned to face him and brace her hand against his arm, giving him a wonderful view down her lean, wet body. He idly wondered when humor had become part of their exchanges. There was a comfortable familiarity between them now which felt unexpectedly intimate. A sense of intimacy was probably not all that surprising considering what they'd just done (and what they'd done on his bed, twice, before that) or the confessions they'd made before stepping into the shower, but this felt different. It wasn't passion or love or a mythical connection, just two humans enjoying each other's company. Like smiling, companionship was something that had been in short supply for Kylo, certainly in recent years. Yet somehow Rey had single-handedly banished his loneliness, ignited his passion, slaked his lust, and given him something to fight for, and she'd only been with him for a few hours. Force knew what new delights she'd have in store for him after a day in her company, or two days, or ten.

"If you're expecting an apology you'll be disappointed," he remarked, although he curled his arms around her nonetheless and pressed a happy kiss to her lips before straightening back up and reaching for one of the black bottles from the cubicle's in-built shelf. It was made of quartz-flecked stone, with a chrome pump, and Kylo depressed the mechanism to eject a stream of milky soap into his opposite palm.

Once the bottle was back in its place, his eyes flickered between Rey, his cupped hand, and her long, glistening body, before he asked, "May I?"

✦ ✦ ✦

The smiles that she glimpsed on Kylo’s face, much like the taste of his lips in a kiss, were becoming dangerously addictive. She’d seen the first one not long ago – had it still only been hours since dreams and reality swapped roles? – and it had felt like an anomaly. There were a scant few others which had been sprinkled throughout the moments leading to this one, now, with its plain, simple joy. It drew up at the corners of his lips, as beautiful a motion as the script written in the margins of his folio, and perhaps just as delicate, given how infrequent they seemed to be. An expression of happiness that was slowly becoming more permissible, maybe, and her bright graze pranced from his lips to his eyes, powerless over the dimpled smile she reflected back. He was, she would argue to anyone, the brightest thing she’d ever seen.

It didn’t make sense, in the same miraculous way that nothing so far had made sense: when had aggression and bitterness eroded to reveal this geode of joy? Levity, splashes of humor, as if they were comfortable with one another, and had been for years. As if feral passion between them was as natural as the dance between suns and moons. It felt like that could be true. It felt like it was, perhaps, the only thing she knew to be true. When had ‘happiness’ felt like a word that might, in fact, be close at hand? Nothing felt more natural than having the gentle onslaught of water embracing them both, of feeling spritzes of it bounce from his shoulder to her cheek, or from the slope of his bicep down in rivers to her fingers where she gently gripped him, simply sharing space.

An embrace warmer than the one provided by the steam and the water suddenly enclosed around her, and she melted into the sturdy hold while it lasted, forgetting apologies, melting briefly into a kiss before her attention was casting up after his fingers. There was curious, pretty stone, and that standard-issue, relentless black which colored nearly every surface belonging to the First Order, and then the stark contrast of the pearly soap jetting into Kylo’s palm. Tilting her head as she watched, and then lifting her hands to brush back clinging, wet hair from her temples, she regarded the soap for a moment before looking back up at his face, not yet without a playful gleam.

“Don’t you have a scouring brush to use on me? That’s what we used for the dirtiest scrap on Jakku,” a solid, coarse-bristled brush for scraping away grime and rust and all manner of filthy accumulations, to make a piece of salvage look more presentable. It seemed to be an efficient way of cleaning, although she didn’t plan on arguing the use of his bare hands smoothing that milky lather over her freshly-rinsed body. “And I’m pretty dirty.”

✦ ✦ ✦

The smile widened on Kylo's lips until he could feel the long lines of his dimples cleaving down his cheeks, giving Rey a glimpse of the teeth that had, earlier, been grazing her flesh. He pressed his two hands together, transferring a little of the soap from one to the other and working it into a lather before reaching out to smooth it over Rey's skin, gently maneuvering her out from under the heaviest of the shower's deluge.

"Yes, you are pretty dirty," he agreed lasciviously, but not in the way she meant. She wasn't something to be scoured and she most certainly wasn't scrap. She might have come from nothing, but so did kyber crystals, forged by pressure and grown in rock, nurtured by earth and the passage of time, waiting to be found and taught how to beam. He remembered when he had first found his kyber, the one which had called to him from the depths of the Crystal Cave on Ilum: how he had searched for it relentlessly until they'd been united; how he'd polished it and poured himself into it until it glowed blue, imbued with his fierce, protective spirit; how he'd carefully, lovingly, constructed a home for it; how it had come to save his life in more ways and on more occasions than he'd ever hoped it would have to. He remembered too, how it had sung at Rey's touch – the crystal which was as close to his own soul as the Force that moved through it – and how she had wielded it with defiance in the face of Snoke, as she'd asserted her faith in its master. Had he proved her faith well-founded? Possibly not; not yet, anyway, but he was working on it. Like a kyber, perhaps all he needed was a little love and nurturing from someone close to his soul in order to make him shine.

"You're going to smell of me," he commented as his large hands moved over her, spreading the soap bubbles across her shoulders and breasts, his thumbs pausing to smooth tenderly over her nipples before they moved downwards to her waist and hips. He liked the idea of her skin smelling of his soap and her hair hanging full of the scent of his conditioner, the outside of her body laced with traces of him, just like the inside of her was. He stooped then, and glanced up at her briefly, before letting his sudsy fingers move down between her thighs to glide through the glossy mess he'd left behind there. The feel of it on the skin of his fingertips made his stomach wriggle with something like pride.

Gradually, he let the soap on his hands and the gentle spray of the water cleanse the rivulets of cum from the insides of her legs before his touch migrated around her to slide over beautifully firm ass cheeks as he rose to stand once again, pulling her against him beneath the flow of water.

"There. No scouring brush needed."

✦ ✦ ✦

One perfect smile somehow deepened its perfection as she watched it grow across his face, becoming two charming dimples, and a flash of teeth, and if every step bringing her to where she stood now had been a reckless risk, a leap into a pool that was either darkness or light, she would take the same plunge again, without a second thought, if it meant she was able to watch that smile, over and over. It didn’t fit with the vision of him she’d always known, and particularly the vision she’d bitterly strived to hold onto since Crait. That had been a vision of the First Order’s Supreme Leader, grim and murderous, if she narrowed her understanding of him down to the point at which he’d betrayed her, and nothing more. This smile, however, like the plain, open pain he’d shown in the forest clearing, was Ben’s.

Dropping her eyes to watch the pearly soap be worked into a lather between his hands, she allowed herself to be drawn out from under the hardest stream of water, skin tingling in anticipation. It was as lovely as she’d imagined it would be, although she hadn’t, in fact, spent too much time wondering what his huge, soapy hands would feel like smoothing across her water-sleek body. That seemed a shame now, because it made the shower far more marvelous than it would have been on its own. To be sure, pressurized hot water was still a gift that felt like it should’ve been long out of reach, given who she was. It wasn’t a Resistance-base luxury, and she certainly never would have known it on Jakku. But she was no longer marooned in the desert, and she wasn’t limited to the sparse resources of the rebels. She was, in a way that still bemused her if she thought about it too closely, aboard a First Order star destroyer, in the personal quarters of the Supreme Leader. In his personal ‘fresher, under his personal jet of water, being bathed in his personal soap, by his own hands.

It did smell like him, although without the addictive, salty edge of sweat and the earthy tang of foliage and the metallic scent of fighters. Now it was the simplified aroma of sharp and simple clean, and she was perfectly happy to wear it, not out of any personal delight in the scent, but rather a delight in who it reminded her of. Dark and powerful and clean-edged. The night sky before it was sprinkled with the richer scents of sweat and heat, like stars tossed over the top.

“And you’re going to smell of _me_ ,” she assured, refusing to believe it wasn’t true. She might be masked in the scent of his soap, but she also liked to believe he was indelibly marked with her own hardy perfume. Dirty, as they’d already established, but even after the grime had been washed away, she believed, in a warm twist of possession that curled through her body, that he was still going to carry traces of her on him. Maybe he was using his hands to clean away the forest and the sweat and the smoke from her shoulders, and over her chest where her tunic and wraps had clung, and she let out a soft, distracted sigh as his thumbs passed over her nipples. Maybe they would leave each other’s skin looking untouched, but he wasn’t going to be able to erase the passion she’d branded him with, just like the scar bisecting his face. This would not be visible, aside from the bruising she’d massacred his neck with, and she followed him down with curious eyes as he sudsed and rinsed her smeared thighs. Soap was handy, but it wasn’t going to erase him from her, and it wasn’t going to erase her from him, either. Her skin relished the attention of his hands, regardless, and the skimming of hot water over fragrant soap, smiling brightly as she was pulled back in against his chest.

No scouring brush had been needed, and she wrapped her arms around his thicker body to indulge in a warm, wet embrace, resting her mouth on his collarbone. It pleased her to think that even after they stepped out of the shower, he would still catch her scent in his own hair, and taste her when the tip of his tongue flicked out against his bottom lip the way it did. That he would still feel the slick tension of her thighs squeezing his hips, and he would still be able to smell their combined musky desire, regardless of how many showers they took.

That was the only reason she felt compelled to rub any soap onto his body at all, pulling herself back to reach for her own handful of the same soap he’d freshened her with. “Even with your fancy soap, you’re going to smell me everywhere,” she decided, unafraid to claim what was now hers. A primitive way of declaring that he was hers, probably, but he _was_ hers, and she spent a moment marveling at the soap turning into a mass of bubbles between her palms before reaching forward, laying both hands on his chest and breaking into another playful smile. How could a shower be so simple, and still somehow as thrilling as a festival? She needed no encouragement to let her hands roam free, running over the ridges of his muscled torso, back over his chest, around to his sides, and then up to his shoulders, slowing as she came upon the bite she’d inflicted on his neck. Smoothing her fingertips gently over the caked and hardened blood on the torn edges, she nipped the corner of her own lip as she observed the full extent of what she’d done.

“Sorry about that. Does it hurt?”

✦ ✦ ✦

He liked the idea of carrying Rey’s scent with him quite as much as he enjoyed the thought of her being laced with his. It was primal, territorial and possessive but exciting nonetheless. He could just imagine emerging from his quarters to face his officers again, accompanied by the memory of the way his pillows smelt of her hair now or how the taste of her pretty, little cunt still coated his tongue. Not one among them could possibly guess the kind of heaven he’d found behind the closed doors of his suite, or how Rey’s permutation of his soul was going to affect all of them. It would, he felt sure; nothing was going to be the same now, not for any of them. He had been existing in a vacuum without her, waiting and raging and watching as the war burnt on around him, as he’d helped drive it forwards, but he knew now that wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted was right here – in his arms, against his chest, Rey’s hands running soap across his body in the kind of blissfully ordinary scene he would never have allowed himself to imagine before it had become a reality – and he knew he would do whatever it took to hold onto it. He would fight for it, for her.

Kylo felt her slippery fingers slow as they approached the broken skin left by her teeth on his neck and he tilted his head slightly, giving her silent permission to go on, to touch. The wound stung a little, especially as the soap bubbles cleaned away some of the remaining flakes of hardened blood around the little indented marks of her teeth, but the pain was minimal and not entirely unpleasant. With every little twinge, he was reminded of how he’d come by the mark: her endless defiance and eventual, breathtaking surrender as he careened with her into a lake of starlight.

“I’ve had worse,” he said dryly, raising his right eyebrow. The movement exaggerated the scar which ran down from that starting point on his forehead to a curling end on his chest, flanked on the opposite side of his body by the puckered scar tissue of the stab wound where Rey’s blade had first caught him. Still, it didn’t bother him to suffer pain at her hands; every blow she’d ever dealt him had been teaching and – now he looked back on them – strangely restorative.

“Did you like it?” he asked, a tone of genuine curiosity coloring his voice. “Feeling my flesh between your teeth?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Of course he’d had worse; she’d delivered it herself. And now he wore it, her eyes flicked to discover once again, traveling over the thin, deep line cracked across his face. A trail burned between the constellations of the moles on his cheek, down over the edge of his jaw, down the firm column of his neck, down the rise of his collarbone… all of which she was able to behold in its entirety as he tilted his head for her fingers to continue across the latest brand she’d given him. Looking at it allowed her to relive it, the blazing cut of her blue blade across his astonished face, the Skywalker plasma sending him straight into the ground. A decisive blow, or so she’d thought. Nothing had been simple after that. Glancing up at his eyes with half a guilty shine in her own, she wandered her soapy fingers over the sweeping scar from her ‘saber, across to the puckered scar where it had first struck him, and over the fresh bite at his neck. She’d never had a need to express affection in the desert, and when she found herself with something sustaining in her hands, it was promptly claimed, if not consumed. It felt like the language she knew best, and she could see her fluency in it now, written across the body she had wounded and loved in equal measure.

He rallied through every strike she made at him, however, and he’d endured her fangs digging into his skin just as gamely. It was a feral instinct, one she doubted could be tamed, not after so many years tearing across sand dunes, through the carcasses of abandoned fighters, scrapping against anyone who dared to threaten her hollow survival. It was rough and abrasive and forthright, but if her affection mirrored her ferocity, he would not have to bear too many battle scars. At the very least, he would feel her fondness as often as he felt her fury.

She couldn’t apologize for a step taken that had brought them to where they stood now, and she also couldn’t apologize for being so caught up in her need for him that she’d made him bleed. They’d uncovered a new language between them, like a sheet in the folio he’d shared with her – words they could decipher and put to use building bridges, not inflicting pain. Words that had been woven into promises and confessions, bringing them closer than they’d dared to be before. Sometimes there was no language but the humming, dancing light of plasma crashing against plasma, and sometimes there was no language but the panting of anxious breath and splayed fingers and racing hearts, and sometimes her hunger knew no bounds. So she had sunk her teeth in. She had tasted his hot blood spicing her tongue, and that had been the intoxicating taste in her mouth as he chased her into a supernova of starlight.

Looking up again, she blinked through the zigzagging water that collected on her lashes, considering the memory. Dropping her hands over the curves of his shoulders to his biceps, she stepped back and drew him with her under the full spray of the water. It was making an impossibly glassy shine on his chest, a surface she couldn’t keep from touching as it was rinsed clean, and her fingers gradually found their way down his arms, sliding along the backs of his wrists and turning his hands palm up as she lifted them.

“I do like feeling your flesh between my teeth,” she confirmed, lifting one palm up to her mouth, where she could graze an exploratory nip against the heel of his hand. A hard knob of flesh, and then the dip down, following the cord of his tendon to where it led to the softer skin of his upturned wrist. Resting the suggestion of a bite there, she let her lips press the slick skin instead, the tip of her tongue flicking to taste the same sheen. “I feel like I could eat you if I’m not careful.”

It was an odd hunger, and she had to wonder if it was distorted by too many years toiling under the Jakku sun. She wanted to taste him. Her teeth in his skin, his blood prickling on her tongue, the stardust he was made of becoming the stardust she was made of. Taste was such a simple sense, and so easily taken for granted. But she had so often tasted so little, and it had always been so bland – how could she not relish the way he was variously soft and hard against her mouth, warm and rich and salty, and she nibbled at the skin which covered the thread of blue blood traveling through his wrist, murmuring. “I’ve never tasted anything like you before.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo watched with interest as Rey maneuvered him, his hands feeling so large between her slim fingers. The touch of her lips and teeth against the battle-worn skin of his palm was strangely erotic, even more so when they traveled inwards to his wrist, so sensitive and vulnerable. His tongue glanced across his lips, collecting water droplets, as he intently watched her mouth moving across the thin, vein-striped skin. She could do real damage there if she chose to, and yet it thrilled him to feel how her teeth hovered, to trust her with control over his body, his pain.

"I would let you," he breathed, once again imagining that being consumed by Rey might not be the worst way to end his days in this galaxy.

His wrist twisted against the ticklish nibbling of her blunt, white teeth as he let his fingers move against her jaw then up into the curtain of hair behind her ear. His other hand had taken up a spot against the side of her ribs, in the gap left by her slim arm, and he curled his fingers around the span of her to keep her close as he leaned in to capture her lips with his, drawing them away from his wrist. He hadn't tasted anything like her before either, and he tasted her then, long and slow and deep, like he was trying to memorize the flavor of her.

He would have kissed her all night if he could have, but logic told him that there was only so long they could stay beneath the torrent of hot water before their skin turned to wrinkles and the destroyer's water treatment system began to complain of overuse. With a contented sigh, he lifted his chin and moved his hands to her two shoulders to turn her around in front of him.

"I'm going to wash your hair and mine, then we're going to get out, dry off and eat—" he paused, then clarified, "— _food_ , before I take you to bed and have you again." His fingers raked gently through her wet hair as he spoke, his neck arched so his mouth was close to her ear, defying the hiss of the shower with his deep rumble. "Any objections?"

✦ ✦ ✦

It was generous and selfless of him to believe he would _let_ her consume him, though she hardly believed she would need his permission if such a hankering flew across her mind. Which, as they’d both discovered, it already had at least once, keeping herself from being tempted back into another rush now as the edge of her teeth slid against his wrist. A soft, tender spot, just like the side of his neck, but she wasn’t invested in blindsiding him with pain if she didn’t have to. They’d danced with violence before, but that was a different surge of chaotic energy. Maybe another strain of some sort of misdirected passion, but her desire was much clearer when she had him in her hands, alone, with nothing between them. Everything was somehow distilled in those moments, in a way it never had been before. The same way she’d been struck with a glow of understanding when their fingertips had touched on Luke’s island – bravely baring themselves to one another, mind or body, or both, was the keenest, most startling insight she had found.

Flicking a small smile against the twitch of his wrist, she let him replace the kiss she was gliding over that new spot with a kiss from his mouth, tingling in another flush of warmth that was separate from the heat of the water streaming against them. Every part of him that she’d had the liberty to kiss was intoxicating: from the flesh of his neck down to the fragile bones of his wrist, and his lips most of all, taking full advantage of the opportunity to lean into the palm that moved across her jaw, and into her hair, guided in closer by the hand resting at her ribs. A long, slow kiss could be just as dizzying at the spontaneous combustion of something ravenous and quick, and it was still ravenous, in its own way. Close and smooth and deep, hungry, and she could have willfully forgotten the luxury of the water for the luxury of his lips if she hadn’t felt his heavy hands then landing on her shoulders, plucking the kiss from its roots and turning her around.

Climbing her gaze up the wall in front of her as the next few steps of their plan were laid out, she couldn’t help another cheeky smile, letting go of a bright, approving hum. “Eat _food_ , of course, you’ve kept me waiting long enough. I’m starving,” she was happy to chime in, curious to experience what a meal in the First Order, in the Supreme Leader’s quarters, looked like. The simplest trooper-designated rations from the mess wall also would’ve sufficed, she was certain, more closely aligned with what she was used to, but her mind was also glancing over what might come after, of being heaved back into bed and rolling in tangled black sheets. And the novel touch of attentive fingers running through her hair before all of that, lifting her hands to gather the long lengths back over her shoulders, which shivered under the thunder of his low voice against her ear.

“No objections. But you’re going to have to read me something else from your secret diary before you have dessert.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo carried on smiling to himself as he reached out for a handful of shampoo and returned it to lather into her hair. She was funny, he realized, with her little quips and her natural feistiness. When she wasn't trying to fight him with it, it seemed she channeled it into a kind of natural, effortless humor. Of course, it was entirely possible that he just hadn't been in the mood to see the funny side of life before. Either way, he felt somehow lighter now, here in the shower with her, his fingers working her hair into a mass of white bubbles and a smile etched on his face. He couldn't possibly have guessed when he'd woken up that morning that this was how he'd be whiling away his evening; it was a kind of pleasure he hadn't known he'd needed.

"It's not a secret diary," he told her, tipping her head back slightly and guiding it back beneath the flow of water. "It's a very serious compendium of research."

The suds began to flow away down her back and into the drain at their feet. Kylo watched them for a moment before lifting the rest of the soap left over on his hands to scrape quickly through his own hair. It felt thick with grime and he knew for a fact that, before the shower had saturated it with water, it had already been lying flat against the sides of his head, weighed down with sweat. After a moment, he helped himself to another handful of the shampoo in order to finish the job before joining Rey beneath the steaming cascade.

"I'll read you all of it if you want," he spoke through the water, eyes closed, his black eyelashes lying flat against his cheeks as he let it stream across his face and hair. "And teach you how to read it yourself." He was fairly certain Rey had been thinking less about a Force history and ancient languages lesson and more about the way his eyes had darkened when he'd corrected her misspoken Sith when she'd set her parameters, but the offer was a genuine one, whether she took him up on it tonight or in a week's time. "It all relates to you; it's only fair," he added with a shrug, blinking the water out of his eyes as he glanced down at her dark head in front of him.

When he was satisfied that all the shampoo had been washed out of his hair and hers, he ducked out from beneath the flow, lifted his hands and ran them backward from his face to the nape of his neck, then shook his head like a loth-wolf shaking off rain, sending droplets flying everywhere.

"Conditioner now," he told her, finding the third of the matching stone bottles and cupping his palm to receive a handful of the thick, white cream, before beginning the process over again: smoothing it through her hair first, then his own, using his fingertips to gently rake away any tangles.

"You're beautiful, you know," he added, taking himself by surprise at how readily the compliment had slipped from his unpracticed lips. "Like this, but all the time too." It had never really occurred to him to tell her so before, although he'd thought it from the first moment he'd seen her. There were just so many other things about her which seemed more comment-worthy, such as her passion and compassion, her intelligence, her power, her Light. Beauty seemed almost redundant compared to her intangible virtues, and yet it held him captive as though it was a power she wielded as fiercely as the Force. "I would look at you all the time if I could."

✦ ✦ ✦

It most certainly was a secret diary: written primarily in languages she couldn't read, and abundant with elusive, life-altering content. Something she would never make any use of without the assistance of the scholar himself, and there were of course other benefits to having him reveal those secrets to her by his own tongue. The strangely titillating thrill of hearing strange, ancient words rumbled in his deep tenor, and the indescribable look on his face when she tried to speak them herself. 'Research' sounded stone-dry and painfully dull; a secret diary was rife with savory secrets and dazzling gems she would never otherwise get her hands on.

Scrunching her face into another smile before she could open her mouth to challenge him, she gave in to a squirming, exhilarated quiver as his fingers worked her hair into a wonderfully seething mass of bubbles. The matted sweat was washed away, the wild tangles eased apart, and warm water skimmed down over her cheeks and nose as she scoffed. "Com _pen_ dium," she parroted, sputtering over the word as it was caught against the water tumbling over her lips. It was definitely a diary, and she turned to tell him so, instead finding herself watching as he scooped his hands through his own dark hair, blinking in flat-out wonder at the sight she was met with. "That's not the only thing I saw in that… cupboard…"

Hot, sudsy water was streaming out of shiny black waves, his giant hands pushing from his forehead back down to his hard nape, giving her an entirely problematic view of his body, uninterrupted by anything at all. The marble-chiseled landscape of his torso, with its startling arrangement of symmetrical muscle, and the divot down the center, begging to be traced. The exaggerated span of his chest, broad and sturdy as a sheet of steel, the deep rifts leading up to his angled elbows and the bunched muscles of his arms as he shoved water through his thick, grabbable hair, everything deliciously _wet_. She almost didn't even mind that he shook himself off like a winter-coated animal, spritzing through her awe with a spray of shaken droplets to her face, cursing softly as she returned to coherence.

It meant she was pliable once again, permitting him to arrange her and place his hands wherever they needed to be, running her own palms across her face as he worked conditioner into her sleek tresses. His compliment caught her off-guard, enough so that a laugh escaped her glistening lips first. _Beautiful_? What from Jakku had ever been beautiful? There was only knife-sharp dust, rust, and garbage; crime, outcasts, and gritty survival. There was little beauty. 

"That's the biggest lie I've ever heard in my entire life," she refuted, her own reflection wavering before her mind's wary eye. She was small, wiry, and scrappy. Sun-freckled, and lacking any of the abundant, exaggerated curves of more endowed sentients. She was gleaming with sweat more often than not, her hair came loose with a will of its own, and she was not painted or decorated in any way. Her face was plain, her body, with its slim muscle, was forgettable. And in spite of her doubt, a blush flared across her cheeks, and she ran her hands across her face a second time as if to swipe it away. "I'm sure you've seen real beauty." Something far grander than a desert nightbloomer.

She'd felt the devotion of his body, though – the worshipping touch of his hands, as if she _was_ beautiful, as if she had caught his eye, and she'd felt those eyes on her, deep and dark, as if they wanted to taste what they saw. Something that should've been impossible, an attraction she was, still, surprised to find reciprocated, given her rough and feral nature. Turning around again, unable to resist the urge to thread her fingers through his wet hair while she had the chance, she leaned up to bring her hands into the black, wet waves above his ears, sliding her fingers deep, rising up to do so.

"You're glorious. Like," and she had to rifle through her scant frame of reference, her own mental compendium of glorious things she'd seen. There weren't many. "Like a rainstorm. Or a Z-95 Headhunter that still runs. Your eyes are like starlight in the dark." Something she couldn't get enough of, something to drive her to distraction, and she brought a kiss almost against his lips before dropping back down instead, seizing the chance to shake her own head, enthusiastically sending a small explosion of diamond-droplets in all directions.

✦ ✦ ✦

“I’ve never lied to you,” Kylo reminded her pointedly, as she slid around between his arms and lifted her hands to wind into his hair, the black strands slick with conditioner now, as was the chestnut curtain that lay sleekly down her back. It pained him to think she couldn’t believe he found her beautiful and he immediately cursed himself for not making sure she knew it earlier. He would, he decided, tell her she was beautiful as often as he could now: when she was scrubbed clean and bare like this, when she was covered in dirt and sweat, when she was fully clothed and snarling, when she was wet with his cum, when she was interestedly nosing through his folio or trying to wheedle her way into his private storage cupboard. He would tell her until he could see the belief in her eyes when she heard it.

He stole a deep breath, resisting the urge to stopper her words with another deep kiss when she told him how ‘glorious’ he was. Her unusual references made his chest jolt as a quiet exhale of laughter escaped through his nose. A Z-95 Headhunter that still ran? He supposed he’d been compared to worse things. And he realized it brought a warm glow to his insides, to begin to see himself as Rey saw him now, not as a monster any longer, but as a rainstorm – still menacing and uncontrollable and treacherous, but impressive, powerful and restorative as well. New life sprung forth following a rainstorm, the world made new in its wake.

When thought about in terms such as that, Kylo wasn’t sure that _Rey_ wasn’t the rainstorm herself.

He tilted his head back and forth between her fingers, helping them burrow deeper into his hair, as he looked down at her with a quiet sort of adoration.

“I did mean it,” he said, after a moment of quiet. Her gaze was on him and he let himself sink deep into those warm, hazel eyes. “I am in love with you.” It felt strange to say it out loud – nerve-racking and exhilarating at the same time – but he wanted her to know, wanted her to hear the words from his lips as she’d given him them from hers.

✦ ✦ ✦

It was still true, and it was still a wrestling match with her better judgment to hear it, but she could feel it in her bones each time she was reminded. He had never lied to her. He’d never had any reason to, even when they were most violently at odds, and what reason would he have now, when they had come to this precipice of peace and understanding? A dangerous spot, with a steep fall if anything were to go wrong, but it would have been a false effort to hold onto any shadowy scraps of doubt now. There was only the heady hum of light, across the bond and in the dark, bottomless eyes she was searching, and it had never felt like anything was _less_ dangerous. Like there was no step that could be taken in the wrong direction, because now that they had agreed to stand side by side – in an unconventional way, perhaps – there was no way they could be steered off course. That was a whimsical wish, as she knew, given what she’d learned of the universe’s inclination toward disaster and misery, but maybe they’d wheedled a way around that. Maybe, somehow, they’d found something indestructible.

Feeling another amused smile inch across her lips as his skull tipped and rolled against her hands, she used the motion to let her fingers fall deeper into his wet, black waves, letting a bounty of suds trail out across her fingers. It slid all the way down to her elbows, hot water and soap gleaming together, and with the steam from the shower billowing the neat, sharp scent of his collected soaps around them, it almost felt like she’d stumbled into the atmosphere of an entirely new planet. Somewhere fresh and embracing and captivating, and so maybe it would’ve made sense to hear what came next, but the return of the words she’d spoken earlier stalled her heart in her chest, blinking as if she didn’t understand them. But then her pulse was making a rejuvenated return, fluttering up through her ribs as she let the words rain down over her just as warmly as the clean water, a softer smile falling across her lips.

The heat of the shower combined with the dancing chill of the words sent a quiver across the surface of her skin, and she used the hands threaded into his hair to pull his head down closer, now unable to resist the urge to lean in for the kiss she’d only hinted over his lips a moment before. She wanted to taste the words as he spoke them, brushing in to sigh a water-sleek kiss against his mouth. It was so inviting to want to ease back into that place against his body where she belonged, where they melded together as if that had always been the answer. The new, sheer joy of expressing love, with her body as well as her soft, warming thoughts, and she delivered a playful nibble to his pillowy bottom lip before drawing him back in with her beneath the onslaught of water to be rinsed clean, not quite leaving his mouth as she did so.

"You better hurry up and feed me before I start to eat you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for beta reading for us! ❤️❤️❤️


	15. Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There _is_ one Force, but it has two aspects, the Living Force and the Cosmic Force.” He let his fingertips brush back and forth across her skin before curling his knuckles and letting the backs of his fingers get a turn at reveling in the silky warmth of her. “The Living Force is what’s generated by all living things.” He sent a gentle flurry of it seeping into her leg to prove his point. “It feeds into and sustains the Cosmic Force which, in turn, connects all things.” He paused before adding, with a shrug, “It’s how you can lift rocks, even though they’re inanimate. Everything is connected by the Cosmic Force. And when living things die, they become one with it again, as they were before birth.”
> 
> It wasn’t the best explanation – it was simple, at best – but it would do for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 

_I am in love with you._

Kylo’s lips had been trying to press into a nervous pout as soon as the words had escaped him, but Rey's kiss arrested them, stealing any worries he might have had about voicing the emotion out loud. His arms slipped around her, his neck bowed as he melted into her lips, feeling the way her lithe body fit against his larger frame as he curled around her. He felt the warm flutter of her thoughts around his own, that sense of belonging, and he couldn't help but smile into her little nibble as she pulled him with her beneath the cascade of water.

Her fingers were still in his hair and he felt the conditioner wash away as the water flowed down on them. He lifted his own hands to her head, wrapping his long, thick forearms up her back, to let his fingertips agitate the last of the suds out of her chestnut mane, kissing her all the while. He never wanted to _stop_ kissing her, although he knew the time was coming when he'd have to, for at least as long as it took them to eat. He wondered whether this hunger for her would ever subside? Would time dull it or would he always long for their bodies and minds to be joined like this, _more_ than this— as they were when he was buried deep inside her and drifting on a sea of starlight?

Eventually, he released his grip from around her and reached out reluctantly to turn off the shower. The water stuttered once then stopped, leaving the pair of them dripping but clean. Kylo lifted his hands to his own head and ran his hands backward across his hair, squeezing out water, then he opened the shower door and stepped out into the relative cold of the 'fresher. At once, goosebumps bloomed across his pale skin, but he ignored them as he stooped to pull two large, fluffy, black towels from a stack of clean ones in a cupboard beneath the countertop. He offered one to Rey while he let the other fall open in his hand to drape along the length of his legs.

"What do you like to eat anyway?" he asked. "You know, apart from me." His eyebrows furrowed slightly as his mind skipped ahead to the order he was about to place. He never normally ate anything more exciting than the most basic rations, treating them as the fuel his body needed rather than anything to be enjoyed, but he knew his officers had been known to indulge more extravagant tastes, and he found himself wanting to lavish Rey with whatever she desired.

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Kissing in the humid forest, kissing in the wonderfully compact cockpit of the TIE, kissing in bed, kissing against a permasteel wall, kissing under a flux of steaming hot water – there was nowhere Rey didn’t want to kiss him, and it was only a catalog of hotspots that she wanted to see grow. Kissing anywhere, everywhere, with soap bubbling around her fingers and out of his dark hair, and with his big hands searching through her own, combing out the last of the conditioner. Everything felt cleaner than it had in... months? Years? Forever? She’d never had a more thorough shower, and she was reluctant to leave it now, breathing a soft murmur as the question in his mind fringed along the edges of her own. Would it ever stop? Would this longing fade, like morning mist under the heat of a callous sun? It was hard to believe it could, given how deeply and insistently her hunger ran, an impulse that, without her thin restraint, would have had her pulling him back against her, flat against a wall, pleading breathlessly to have him sheathed inside her again.

A kiss was a dangerous thing if it could ignite that sort of relentless passion, and so it was probably for the best when he released his grip and killed the flow of the water. A chill flew across her skin as soon as the shower door was opening, lifting her hands to collect her hair over one shoulder and wring it of the shining water that remained. The warmth was far sweeter than the cold, and so she shivered where she stood, brightening at the sight of the plush black towel offered. Stepping to take it, she wasted no time in cocooning herself inside, wrapping herself from shoulders to shins, and immediately enjoying the fact that it was so _big_. It would have to be, after all, designed for someone of Kylo’s stature, and she didn’t hide her delight in burrowing into it now, padding back out into the narrow ‘fresher.

The question she was presented with once there required a moment of thought, and once again, her frame of reference was woefully small. She couldn’t claim to _like_ portions, although she couldn’t deny the simple pleasure they delivered in place of nothing else. A temporary solution to the ongoing emptiness, and it wasn’t until she’d dined in Maz’s castle that she’d tasted something more. A memory sprang to mind of fruits – gushing, tropical gems with an exhilarating array of flavors, and she hummed her recalled fondness before beginning to ruffle herself dry, meandering her answer aloud. “I like fruit. You know, from a forest? And berries. Those are delicious.”

The way they exploded, a bounty of flavor across the tongue, was a radiant pleasure, usually delivered in a variety of strange, surprising textures. Fruits were also, from her limited experience, beautiful to simply look at, with their vibrant, painted skins, like edible flowers. It occurred to her, shortly after, that the First Order might not have a store of such perishable goods onboard, and she turned to quickly amend her whimsical answer, knowing that truthfully, anything was going to be appreciated and enjoyed with just as much gusto as she ever consumed her portions.

“But I’ll eat anything. Whatever you normally eat,” and once again, she couldn’t imagine what that was – something severe and basic, she felt certain, although a rogue image swam across her mind of Kylo seated at a neat desk, taking his scrupulous notes, writing in that baffling, beautiful script while dining carefully on something like a sweet, juicy Shuura fruit. Riffling the black towel through her hair once she’d warmed her body with it, a small inhale pulled in the scent embedded in the soft material, like the soap she’d just been cleansed with – the low, dark, arresting scent that she was coming to associate with Kylo. “Although I’ll probably eat twice as much as you.”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Kylo couldn't help the hungry way his eyes roamed over Rey's body as she surrounded it in soft, black toweling and dried the water droplets from her skin. As much as he loved being pressed tightly to her, feeling the willowy curves of her body moving against him, there was something to be said for looking at her from a distance. She was perfection from her head to her toes had it had hardly been more apparent than when she was stripped bare like this, a gentle glow of warmth lighting her cheeks from the heat of the steam and water, and her dark, wet hair hanging in tousled strands around her face where it had fallen after being mussed by the towel. She was all long, golden limbs peeking out from between folds of dark, plush fabric as she moved, and it took Kylo a long, gormless moment to focus on what it was she was actually saying to him.

 _Fruit._ She liked fruit. He felt sure there had to be _some_ kind of fruit on board the _Finalizer_ , even if it was only the dehydrated kind, and he found himself nodding earnestly.

“I usually just eat rations but I’ll have them bring some fruit as well. It’s no problem.”

Silently, he cursed himself for only being able to provide her with a reconstituted version of what it was she craved. If he’d had a chance to plan their first meal together, he’d have thrown her a feast like the kind he remembered being held in his childhood home on Chandila: tables heaving with fresh jogan fruit and spiced meats, sweet lalaren blooms from Carosi Eight served with rich, poached blackbeak eggs, platters of steamed colo claw fish festooned with garlands of ocean kelp, and glasses overflowing with crystalline junipera. Not for the first time, he cursed the circumstances which had brought him to this point, in which even a scrap of dehydrated fruit had to be sought for in the bowels of a star destroyer. He wanted to lavish Rey with everything she desired, everything she _deserved_ , not some pale imitation of it. She deserved to walk freely like the goddess she was, not have to stay shackled in his quarters for fear of what his own subordinates might do to them both if they learned the truth. She deserved all the fresh fruit she could eat; she deserved a whole orchard of jogan fruit trees. And he would give it to her, he decided. When this war was over, he would give her everything she asked of him. He would work out a way to make it happen.

With a new line of determination to the set of his narrow jaw, he lifted his own towel to thoughtfully ruffle dry his hair before wrapping the length of soft fabric around his waist and securing it with a little tuck. Their clothes were still lying in discarded heaps around the floor where they’d fallen, stained with sweat and grime.

“I’ll find you something clean to put on,” Kylo said, throwing a glance, and a silent invitation to follow, back over his shoulder at Rey as he stalked out of the ‘fresher and towards his sleeping quarters. The idea of her wearing something of his brought a new leaping sensation to his stomach and he had to fight it down as he opened one of his long wall-storage panels to reveal a shelf stocked full of folded undershirts. He helped himself to one, then took one out for her as well and leaned over to place it on the end of his disordered bedclothes, before finding two pairs of standard, black boxer-briefs and two pairs of soft, black sleep pants.

“It’s all going to be too big,” he grunted, elbowing the panel door shut behind him as he turned to offer her the clothes. “You can just wear what you want. Whatever’s comfortable.” He didn’t plan on leaving it on her for all that long anyway…

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Rations alone would always be an exciting enough prospect, with no garnish – anything edible was – and the memory of fruit was more a daydream than anything else. Just an honest answer to his question, without having to believe it would be available to her right now. With as dizzyingly luxurious as everything else felt, from the jet of hot water to the warm, plush towel, she doubted there was anything that could detract from her humming, heady high. A plate of rations, however stark, would only add to her satisfaction. Simple was easier, anyway, and she had no real desire to ask for more. Distracted away from those musings, she instead found herself watching as Kylo’s thick, black mane was ruffled dry, looking even softer now than it had before, an open invitation to sink her fingers into it up to her wrists. There was also the bare, shining expanse of clean skin revealed as he fixed the towel around his waist, and she stayed where she was, blinking in shameless admiration, to let her gaze swoop down over the hills of his back, following the subtle pull and flex of muscle as he walked, dotted with its star-map of moles.

Passing by the heaps of their sweat-stained clothing, she was happy to leave her tunic and wraps behind for something new, while at the same time being tempted to stay wrapped in the strangely fluffy embrace of the towel she’d been handed. It wasn’t as if she _had_ anything new, anyway, not of her own, and she kept close to Kylo’s shadow as he led them back into his sleeping quarters. There was a tremendous impulse, suddenly, to drop the towel she’d just been savoring and leap back into the disheveled, black covers they’d left strewn across his bed, and burrow into the warmth she knew was still waiting there, as well as the musky scent of two hot bodies that had recently been wrestled close together, but she managed to resist the lure, limiting herself to a wistful stare, and looked instead into the storage panel Kylo was drawing open. A laugh chirped free before she could stop it; there was no way to keep it back.

“It must be impossible to choose what to wear every day, with all those options,” and she let her gaze rove over black, black, and more black, hiding a smile and then tilting her head as he pulled out not only a black shirt, but black pants, and black boxer-briefs, and she spent a moment wondering if the rations themselves were going to be dyed black, too. “You do have a keen appreciation for color, after all.”

But it all looked soft, at the very least, and she let the towel drop from her shoulders, immediately forgetting it as her attention wandered over the options she’d been given. Taking the small collection of clothing as it was offered, she didn’t need more than one decisive moment to know what she did and did not need. And to know, also, that everything was going to be far too big, but she’d never been more eager to climb into a shirt. Abandoning the pants and the unfamiliar underwear, she instead shook the undershirt open, looked it over, and then pulled it over her damp head. Too big, yes, but that also meant it served the purpose of two articles of clothing, falling as it did over her hips. What was the use for underwear? She was thrilled _not_ to have to wear it, for once; to _not_ have to be held tight in fabric and linen and wraps meant to protect her from abrasions and collect her profuse sweat. Now, confined as she was to the Supreme Leader’s quarters and no eyes other than his, she could dress purely to satisfy her own comfort, and, looking down at the soft, draped shirt, decided she needed nothing more.

It was comfortable, there was no doubt, pivoting lightly on her feet to allow the extra swath of black to billow around her sides, speaking aloud on the topic of this new discovery. 

“Do you have a closet full of capes, too? Or is there only one?”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

It took Kylo a moment to realize what it was Rey meant – it must be impossible for him to choose what to wear? – but when he did, he gave a grimacing smile. She was teasing him, and he supposed he deserved it. He wore all the black for a good reason; it made him look intimidating. It was part of the armor he’d constructed around himself when he’d become Kylo Ren and, now, it was as much a habit as anything else. Besides, it fit in nicely with what was available from the First Order stores – underclothes, workout gear, towels, bedding. For someone who had always been conscious of his appearance, always too tall, with a too-big nose and sticky-out ears, it was comforting to be able to reach for an ensemble which prompted people to cast their eyes down whenever he passed. He liked feeling the tremor of fear in those who saw him approaching; after all, fear was better than ridicule.

He had already started pulling on his underwear and sleep trousers when Rey dropped her towel. The motion, caught out of the corner of his eye, made him pause, and he followed her movements closely as she began clambering into his oversized shirt. Slowly, he finished pulling up his own clothes, situating the elastic low on his waist, while he watched her settle the wide neck across her slender shoulders, granting him a peek of her collarbone and giving him the sudden urge to trace the line of it with his tongue. He wetted his lips instead and pulled his own shirt over his head, his hair falling in tousled waves around his face as he shook it free.

Just like the thought of her wearing his clothes, the sight of it did nothing to calm the excited leaping of his stomach. His shirt ended somewhere low on her thigh and the excess material, needed to accommodate his wide frame but redundant on her, billowed around her as she swiveled. She had forgone the underwear too, he noticed, and he had the sneaking suspicion that, when she lifted her arms, he’d be treated to enticing glimpses of dark, soft curls and firm, rosy ass cheeks.

 _Stars_ , he could feel his pulse rate rising already!

To distract himself, he answered her question by opening the long door of the storage compartment next to the one which hosted his undergarments. This one was set up with a single rail, from which hung his assortment of tunics and surcoats, all black, and a long, leather cloak and cowl. Above them, a narrow shelf held a neat stack of folded pants, some of leather and some of a thick, waxed cotton, also black. At the bottom of the compartment, there were a couple of pairs of black boots, very similar to the ones he’d discarded on their way to the shower.

He had other such cupboards in other quarters on other star destroyers, but their contents were all much the same. It was his uniform: the uniform of Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

Leaving Rey to peruse the contents of his closet, Kylo padded into his living quarters, picking up his discarded folio and dropping his towel down the laundry chute as he passed, and made his way over to the comlink on the wall. He quickly ordered their food, before sinking into one of the chairs at his table and starting to flick through the leaves of paper.

He’d barely touched the surface of the research he’d done when he’d explained what he knew about the Dyad to Rey earlier. While he was sure that a lot of what he’d collected was nothing more than myth and legend, rather than actual fact, it was only fair that she had the whole picture, or as much of it as he had, so she could draw her own conclusions as to what this connection between them was.

His eyes skimmed over the pages of Coremaic and Kittât glyphs, the paragraphs of primitive Protobesh and his own meticulously lettered Aurebesh notes. He would answer whatever questions she had while he translated it all for her and taught her how to add her own written thoughts to his; with her input, the folio would become a record of their joint voyage of discovery, a pathway to understanding, rather than just testament to a desperate man’s hunt for meaning in the black loneliness of his own bleakly silent soul.

✦ ✦ ✦ 

There was, in fact, nothing at all wrong with black – it hadn’t ever necessarily been her favorite color, much preferring vibrant green – but she’d also never seen anyone who wore it the way Kylo did. As a part of a carefully-constructed persona, she was well aware that its purpose lay in emphasizing how unapproachable he was. How frightening and intimidating, an immense, looming shadow, and, to that end, black was probably most effective. It also seemed to somehow enunciate his towering height, and was a natural choice for anyone wanting to appear both formal and fearsome, authoritative and untouchable. An appealing color, despite his more aloof intentions for it, even if it wasn’t the most thrilling array of clothing to behold in his storage compartments.

It also would never compare to the appeal of the moon-color of his bare skin, and she flicked her curious gaze over to him as she felt eyes roaming over her, catching glimpses of pale white against flat black as he dressed. There was no resisting the temptation of imagining what he would look like in an assortment of various other colors, however, and styles of clothing – she was dismally uninformed when it came to the stylistic variety that existed in the galaxy, but she knew it must be vast. Just like there were countless colors and textures of fresh fruit, there must be infinite ways that sentients chose to dress.

As it was, the simplicity of black sleep trousers against his limber body was enchanting enough on its own, and she ran her fingers idly back through her dark, damp hair while traveling her gaze down from his tousled hair to the dip of his back, wanting already to slide her hands beneath the thin cotton he had just covered himself with. His skin was still probably softly radiating the warmth of the shower, and she regretted that he had opted to wear a shirt at all, eyes working their way back up over his chest, frustrated by the blocked view. He was answering her taunt silently, drawing open another storage compartment to reveal, unsurprisingly, another forest of black. Tunics, coats, and the cloak and cowl in question.

Stepping forward to better engage with that sea of dark, she didn’t restrain her urge to reach and brush her fingers along the edges of those hanging garments, as if seeing them here, like this, they might feel entirely different to how they felt when they hung on his muscled frame. Smooth leather and neat, dark, quilted fabrics, and sleek, tall boots beneath. Black – black above and black below, and it was strange to see him dismantled in this way, disparate black pieces of the whole black ensemble of the treacherous form that was Kylo Ren, and to know, at the same time, how starlight-bright he was underneath.

Once he had disappeared into his living quarters, she listened distractedly while he spoke into the comlink, drawing the black cowl she’d spotted from its perch in the closet: draped, dark folds of fabric, meant to keep the face and shoulders obscured in shadow, as far as she understood. She spent a moment exploring the texture with her wandering fingers before taking the novel piece of clothing over her head and around her shoulders. Much too big, as every other piece of clothing in his employ, but luckily she wasn’t dressing for neatness. No purpose at all, really, other than an exploratory curiosity to experience what being wrapped in his clothing felt like. Warm and embracing, thankfully, given how generously everything fit, and she turned to pad out into the living area once she was satisfied with her inspection of the closet and her new acquisition.

Finding Kylo seated at the table, her curiosity was naturally kindled anew as to what he was doing _now_ , and it didn’t take more than a glance to recognize the folio they’d discarded earlier. Stepping up behind him, leaning to peer over his shoulder, she was of course faced only with the transcription of languages that she couldn’t hope to decipher, and the meticulous notes in Aurebesh. However, she didn’t need to understand in order to appreciate, eyes dancing over the beauty of the sight, uncrackable as it was, letting go of a small, inquisitive hum. Lifting a small hand to the back of his shoulder, she kept herself leaned in, as if she was either capable of reading the text or assisting in whatever undertaking he had before him, hair slipping forward as she did, recognizing bits and reaching around him to point out the Coremaic.

“I’ve seen that before. In the Jedi texts. They studied everything, didn’t they?”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Kylo could feel Rey drawing closer, even before she appeared in his peripheral vision at his shoulder. He leaned back in his seat, eliciting the gentle press of her chest against his spine. She made him feel content just by being close to him. However, her words cut through the comfortable glow she enveloped him in, bringing a frown to his brow.

“What Jedi texts—” he began, wondering where the hell she’d come across Coremaic before, but he stalled when he turned to look at her more fully. She was draped in his cowl, the black, woven fabric falling in pools around her slender shoulders and trailing down her back. He felt a shiver of pure, unadulterated lust run straight through him at the sight of her small face, with its high cheekbones and delicately bowed lips, peering out at him from the shadows it cast. He’d never seen Rey in black before today, he realized; the darkest clothing he’d seen her in before was the grey-green poncho she’d worn when the Force had connected them and she’d called him a monster.

He’d dreamed about her in black, though. _Oh_ , how he’d dreamed about her in black, ruling the galaxy by his side from an obsidian throne.

 _This_ Rey was different to the hard, cold magnificence of the Rey in those fantasies, however. Her brow was wrinkled with an affable kind of intrigue, her small hand warm on his shoulder as she made little noises of interest in her throat. This Rey was real and funny, intelligent and curious. This Rey was passionate and stubborn and, when she kissed him, it was with a fire that melted his insides. This Rey was bright and keen and multifaceted in ways that his imagined Empress could never have been.

A smile spread against Kylo’s lips as he watched her studiously examining the foreign words from amidst the curtain of damp, chestnut hair which had escaped forward from beneath the cowl. He lifted a hand to tuck the hair back, to give himself a better view of her expression, before he changed his mind, turned, and scooped her into his lap instead, nestling his face into her cloaked neck. It smelt of him – his soap and First Order laundry products – but, underneath, the unmistakable scent of her. He nuzzled deeper, pushing back the folds of rough, woven fabric and satiny hair until his lips found bare, warm skin and he could press an open-mouthed kiss there. His hand found her thigh at the same time, and curved around the side of it, slipping beneath the hem of the undershirt she was wearing like a dress.

“What was I saying?” he murmured into the curve of her throat, all thoughts of the Jedi and their ancient writings drifting far from his mind.

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Was it stealing or scavenging? It was a matter of opinion, a very thin line of distinction that was open to interpretation. Regardless of how she'd come to have them, regardless of whether or not they had been hers to take, she did have the ancient Jedi texts in her possession. And they had, as far as she was concerned, been free for the taking. Luke was not going to make any practical use of them, nor grant them the respect they deserved, or at least that had been her read of the situation when she'd arrived on Ahch-To, before everything had changed. He'd discarded all of the knowledge within them, and so she'd salvaged it. That meant, in her inquisitive perusal, that she had stumbled across the same characters of Coremaic that she was peering at over Kylo's broad shoulder now. Flicking her bright gaze to his face, she held onto the secret of her larceny just long enough to find that he was suddenly looking elsewhere. His attention had drifted from his half-formed question, was fixedly on her, and she danced her curious eyes across the close, dark features of his face, hiding a small smile as he brushed back the hair that had escaped the cowl she'd taken. Maybe she was more guilty of theft than she'd realized. Or maybe she was, still, an incorrigible, treasure-hunting scavenger.

She didn't have to explain herself, however, because as soon as she parted her lips to do so, eyes wide in innocence, she was being scooped into his lap, a peep of surprise escaping her. Then she was fitting back against him, her shoulder blades against the thick slab of his chest and her hips nesting neatly in front of his steel-sturdy pelvis. The wraps of the woven cowl were warm around her shoulders, but his nuzzling face was warmer, the puff of his hot breath and the shape of his mouth raining a delighted quiver along the bow of her neck. It dipped all the way down to the small of her back, wiggling through her hips as her attention drifted down to the open folio. If he had said something, it was promptly lost to the sun-glow heat of his open mouth on her bare skin, and his long, heavy hand sliding against the side of her slim thigh. Squirming excitedly where she sat, letting her legs fall open under his fingers, she lifted one of her own hands to rest against the page she'd been studying a moment before. Coremaic. She was no longer thinking about Coremaic.

She was thinking about the dimpled smile on Kylo's face that had spread like light on water, and the distracted rumble of his voice as it caught in the folds of her borrowed cowl, his voice licking as warm as a tongue against her newly-clean skin. She was thinking about the fingers slipping beneath the edge of the black shirt which rested, draped, high on her thighs. She was also letting that pleasant bouquet of sensation bloom thoughtlessly through her hips, readjusting her weight against his groin, sliding in for a flush fit, and then tipping her head, either in curiosity or to allow him an inch more skin from beneath the black mantle.

" _I_ was saying," she corrected airily, skimming the passage before her, in its not-entirely-foreign alphabet, "that I know this. It's Coremaic," and she was proud, at last, to say so, to successfully recognize something within the elite confines of his prized _compendium_ , running her fingertips over the ordered symbols and runes, a hum lilting up from her chest. Turning her head to address his nearby face, she quivered at the warm rush of his scent, at the thump of his heart buried in his chest, pattering against her small vertebrae.

"What's it talking about here? My books have drawings. Where are yours?"

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Rey’s ass fit so nicely in his lap that it was difficult to concentrate on what she was actually saying, especially when she wriggled on him like that. While it wasn’t quite as all-consuming a distraction as it had been in the TIE fighter (three incredible orgasms in an afternoon seemed to have cured him of some of the pent up sexual frustration that had been plaguing him in the year since he’d met Rey), Kylo still found his fingers inadvertently tightening against her thigh as he helped her settle comfortably against his wide chest.

His lips moved over the column of her throat, covering what little she’d given him access to beneath the draped fabric with warm, wet kisses, but eventually, he retreated and peered down at what she was pointing to.

The Coremaic letters crawled down the page beneath her finger, almost pictorial in their simplicity, yet desperately opaque in meaning, and the passage was crowded around with a swarm of his neat, precise Aurebesh notes and translations, far more so than the Kittât runes which adorned other pages in the folio and recounted the Sith prophecies and lore they’d spoken about earlier. Despite his propensity for languages, deciphering the Coremaic had been a challenge. Kylo had been forced to painstakingly translate each letter of the dead language from a scroll he’d found among the ruins of the Jedi temple on Tython to make any sense of the few passages he’d found, and he’d made furious notes throughout the process, determined not to let it slip into obscurity again.

“This one is only a transcription of a transcription,” he said, winding his arms around Rey’s waist and resting his chin against her as he spoke. “It’s an origin myth for the Force; there are a few, but this one speaks about Gods at war in a primeval universe. Supposedly, their clashes created the Cosmic Force and, from it, the Living Force came into being.” He shrugged. He had been less interested in the story itself than in one of its derived myths, about two sentient champions being created by the Gods to keep the balance of the Force in a newborn universe, separate beings in the Living Force but one in the Cosmic Force.

In the end, however, that particular strand of research had proved disappointing. While the Coremaic passage Rey was pouring over had been the oldest written record he could find of the Force origin myth, supposedly committed to writing in its original text more than ten thousand years ago, he hadn’t been able to find documented evidence of the Champion addition dating back further than a couple of millennia, long after the ancient orders had already begun writing about Dyads and the significance of ‘two that are one’. Of course, it didn’t disprove that the story of the Champions had come first but, without more evidence, it was hardly convincing. It was just as possible that the Sith prophecies had influenced the myth, rather than the other way around.

“It’s reportedly from the _Rammahgon_ , one of the lost, sacred texts of the Jedi,” he went on, although his eyes flickered upwards towards Rey’s face and narrowed slightly as a suspicion struck him. The Coremaic transcriptions he’d seen had never been accompanied by images, except for the most basic of sketches and scrawls – one Jedi or another’s attempt at making visual sense of the archaic passages – but a number of sources he’d found had suggested that the _Rammahgon_ itself had been beautifully illustrated by Kli the Elder and his school of padawans. If Rey had seen them, that could only mean—

“Which I’m now starting to think might not be so lost after all…”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

There was, it seemed, as deep a sea of Aurebesh notes on the page as there was Coremaic itself, the more familiar letters swaddled around the dead language as if Kylo had been trying to protect it with his dedicated undertaking. And he was, she supposed, given how meticulous and attentively he had been in his translations, his tender handling of runes and words that might crack and splinter if not treated with delicacy. She could understand the careful impulse – the importance of neatly prying a still-good part from a long-dead carcass – but that was an intricacy she had only ever known with her hands, a kind of preservation that she could feel solidly in her palms, with objects she could scour clean and see to the rusted heart of. These dense pages of text were faceted in ways that couldn’t be fully explored by searching fingertips. They couldn’t be yanked out of the dark, have years of wind-tossed sand brushed off of them, and be held up to the light. They couldn’t even be traded in for something practical once they had been uncovered. They existed, aside from this arrangement of marks on durasheet, only in the mind of whoever’s eyes were scanning across them. Even then, they might mean nothing. She could furiously travel the text with her insistent, searching gaze and still come up empty-handed. She needed a translation, a teacher, the insight of someone who had already done a sort of mental scavenging she had never imagined before. There’d never been a need for her to gather this kind of knowledge before, preoccupied with the survival of scavenging hardware and profitable garbage for food, always serving the needs of her starving body. It was baffling to see this evidence of a brilliant, famished mind finding something rich upon which to feed.

Leaning in, as if she might be better able to glean some of the meaning being recounted for her by being closer to the text itself, she let her eyes roam over the cascading runes, seeing nothing but the neat, sometimes swooping, sometimes architectural structure of the letters themselves, all of them packed together, it would seem, to form the myth being revealed over her shoulder: an explanation for where the Force had begun, which left a thoughtful furrow in her brow as she studied the words collected on the page, listening with a warm quiver as Kylo deciphered that story for her. Warring gods, and then the birth of not only one Force, but two? And why? If the answer was woven into the text, she would of course never know, at least not with the ease and clarity with which Kylo spoke of it now, and so she was content to draw her fingers carefully over the transcription, and it would have been easy to trick herself into believing she could feel the individual letters glow with their hidden meaning as it was drawn fluently out.

“Two that are one,” she concluded, imagining two separate streams of the Force, although in her understanding, there was only one, a disparity she spoke aloud, having only the foundation of her own comparatively shallow teachings. “But I thought there was only one Force, and that it wasn’t created. Or destroyed, either. It was just always there,” in the beginning and now, an energy that thrummed between all things, a whispering field that could be tapped into if only a person knew how. An endeavor she still personally struggled with, and if there was not only one such undercurrent of sustaining energy through life as they knew it, but _two_ , how was she ever supposed to make any progress? It was both fascinating and discouraging, and all the more so because she was not equipped to answer those questions herself. At least not yet, although she’d already decided somewhere in the back of her mind that she was going to become well-read in these ancient, overgrown tropics of captivating text, and not only that, but she would be able to take her own notes in that same fluid, meditative hand.

Glancing pointedly to the side at the mention of the scavenged texts, she didn’t turn her head, just guiltily took in Kylo’s suspicious face from the corner of her eyes and then returned to her study of his collected passages. The texts might have been lost forever if she hadn’t pilfered them into her care, and for that she had no regrets. She was achingly aware of just how much meaning waited to be discovered within the _Rammahgon_ , with its red, pressed-clay cover and its ancient Uneti wood pages. It was one of the few real treasures in her possession, objectively so, and the irony of course was that she was still learning how to understand everything it had to offer. It wasn’t lost, and it _was_ beautifully illustrated, and she drummed her fingertips lightly against the page in front of her, relaxing back into the hold of the thick, heavy arms resting around her waist.

“They’re not lost,” she assured, a cheeky quip, not needing to guess at how thrilled Kylo would surely be if he could lay his eyes and his hands on the ancient tomes himself. A delight she decided she would like to see firsthand, but it had also never been in her nature to give up any of her prized finds. Swaying one of her legs in thought, she slid her calf along the harder edges of his shin beneath the softer black of the lounging pants he’d pulled on, making another breezy observation as she turned the page they’d been studying, tossing out a teasing, sensory sample of what she’d seen herself. “The _Aionomica_ are beautiful, too. Their covers feel like an animal hide when you touch them. Like there’s something breathing inside. You have to be careful with the pages, though, especially in the rainforest. They fall apart so easily.”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Rey was capable and strong with the Force – she had allowed the floodgates to open within her and Kylo could tell it now flowed through her freely – but every now and then she did things which displayed just how unschooled she was in the theory behind it, the kind of things a padawan would spend years learning before so much as lifting a rock. She had clearly spent time training over the months since he’d last seen her but, even so, it was obvious she’d focused mainly on the skills she’d need most in a war. She was still woefully naïve about so much. He’d offered to teach her once, thinking, in his arrogance, that he’d be able to train her and bend her to his will, as Master and Apprentice. He knew better now, and moreover, he knew that wasn't the type of relationship he wanted with her, but he still found he had a deep-seated yearning to help her, to watch her flourish and bloom under his guidance.

Anyway, this way was better. This way he got to feel her bare thigh beneath his hand as he explained to her, “There _is_ one Force, but it has two aspects, the Living Force and the Cosmic Force.” He let his fingertips brush back and forth across her skin before curling his knuckles and letting the backs of his fingers get a turn at reveling in the silky warmth of her. “The Living Force is what’s generated by all living things.” He sent a gentle flurry of it seeping into her leg to prove his point. “It feeds into and sustains the Cosmic Force which, in turn, connects all things.” He paused before adding, with a shrug, “It’s how you can lift rocks, even though they’re inanimate. Everything is connected by the Cosmic Force. And when living things die, they become one with it again, as they were before birth.”

It wasn’t the best explanation – it was simple, at best – but it would do for now.

“As for how it came into being, no one knows. Like I said, there are hundreds, _thousands_ , of origin myths, although the _Rammahgon_ supposedly documents four of the oldest.”

He could see the shifty look in Rey’s eyes, even from this oblique angle, although it was soon engulfed by that wit and cheek he’d quickly come to enjoy. The _Rammahgon_ , the _Aionomica_ … how many other sacred texts had she managed to pilfer before he could get his hands on them? He felt his lips pulling upwards in a sardonic smile as he shook his head.

“I should have known, as I was scouring every inch of the galaxy, that both the things I wanted to find most would be _together_.”

No wonder his search for the original texts had proved fruitless again and again and again. It was the thing he’d occupied his time with when he _couldn’t_ find Rey. It felt strangely satisfying to learn that he hadn’t had a chance of finding them in the places he’d been looking. They weren’t lurking in the ruins of some ancient temple on Tython or Coruscant, but with the woman who’d so seamlessly evaded him for so many months. In a rainforest, if he’d heard her correctly.

The thought occurred to him at once: if the ancient Jedi texts were in a rainforest, did that mean the Resistance was hiding out in a rainforest too? In the short time she’d been in his arms, Kylo had learned enough about Rey to be sure that she was too possessive to simply abandon something she described as ‘beautiful’ to the jungle, while she went off to join her friends somewhere else.

He wondered whether she realized her misstep.

Or how little he now cared about tracking down the band of rebels. The realization came as a surprise even to him. He had known all along that it was Rey he was hunting, as he’d put out alerts on all ships associated with the Resistance and authorized the legal detention of known sympathizers and collaborates, but he hadn’t realized quite how much she would quench his thirst for vengeance and dominance. With her in his lap, pouring over his writings, making him smile and sharing those smiles with her lips on his, he honestly couldn’t care _less_ about the Resistance or where it was they were hiding, as long as he got to keep _her_.

“Will you show them to me one day?”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

For someone who had devoted so much time to the obliteration of anything that stood in his way, someone with an affinity for destruction and outright murder, Kylo was also, somehow, the most erudite and cultivated person she’d ever met. The same hand that wielded that blade of unstable, crackling red plasma was the same hand that took these meticulous notes, that had turned the fragile pages of ancient texts searching for even more breakable fragments of a mythology to elucidate their bond. Such a massive task, undertaken so tenderly, and she was consistently perplexed by the gentle inclinations of a mind that had been so long shrouded in darkness. It felt right, though, for as jarring as the realization was, this juxtaposition of reverent, dedicated study and world-annihilating violence. His steady voice was diligently answering her question, and she spent a moment silently grateful that his patience reached as deep as his wisdom.

A Living Force and a Cosmic Force – it made sense, she supposed, although she failed to find a practical application for it. Where did the distinction of those two separate facets matter when calling upon the Force in battle? How could they be channeled into a useful energy, something that could be gripped and handled? Could they be felt, like balance in the hilt of a lightsaber? Anything which was not useful in melee was, by necessity, cast aside for perusal later. The immediacy of war informed her priorities. It wasn’t until now, seated in the lap of the Supreme Leader of the enemy army, that she had the luxury to let her mind roam over metaphysical questions. It wasn’t until she was basking in the light of this newfound sense of security and belonging that she could let the gates ease open, allowing her thoughts to skim across ideas that were not necessarily useful in physical combat. There was room for admiring the beauty of the ancient insights waiting to be unraveled in these sacred texts.

His demonstration of the Living Force, an unexpected flurry of energy beneath her skin, prompted a startled laugh free, jumping her thigh at the whispering touch. The Living Force was easy enough to understand – it wasn’t something to be reached out and _felt_ , as she’d been corrected on Ahch-To – but it was a part of living bodies, like blood or hunger or fear. Natural and inescapable. Dropping her fingers to find his hand, she rode the motion of his stroking touch, tipping her head the opposite way in thought as she regarded the blocks of written text on the page. So much inaccessible theory, encompassing so much thought, in such a small space.

“How could they know that, anyway?” she couldn’t help but challenge, not out of any voracity to argue, but out of a persistent curiosity. “How does anyone know there’s a Cosmic Force? It’s all just energy, and we can only feel the energy of things that are living,” expressions of the Living Force made real, and wouldn’t even the most astute, highly-trained Jedi only be able to sense the living fields of energy around them? Wasn’t lifting rocks the extension of energy from a living body to an inanimate object? Wasn’t the most powerful reaction of energy that between two living bodies? And, at the same time, the things she’d seen kept her from easily dismissing the existence of a higher, intangible Force.

Keeping another smile from showing on her face as the surface of her secret was dusted clean, she elected to offer it to him in place of any words, pleased to know that she’d had in her possession, all along, the texts he had been ransacking the galaxy for. An amusing irony, made more ironic by the fact that she did not, of course, have them with her now. They were sequestered away from the destructive, humid air of Ajan Kloss’ jungle, and she knew that there was no one more deserving of opening the Jedi texts than Kylo’s reverent hand, and no eyes that would more ravenously, and tenderly, consume its contents.

“I’ll show them to you,” she decided after a humming moment, as if it was a show of generosity she’d had to carefully consider. In any other circumstance, with anyone else, it would have been. She didn’t possess much of value, but what she did, she knew she would share with him. Someday, somehow, when they weren’t operating under the shadow of a life-saving lie. Lifting herself, just enough to turn around and occupy his lap in reverse, she took a second or two to regard his face once she had situated herself against his hips. Just for a moment, because she couldn’t seem to pass up the opportunity to do so, flicking her inquisitive gaze over the features of his face as her fingers feathered up over his chest, putting forth her bargain.

“That is, if you show me more of what’s in your secret storage. And teach me to write like you do. And to say all of those words the right way.”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

“Millennia of study,” Kylo guessed. “There used to be whole orders of Force users who dedicated their lives to learning about it.” He had some of their assorted writings transcribed in the folio; others had been too dense and undecipherable, despite being written in modern Galactic Basic, for even him to wade through. He was relentless and obsessive, true, but he _wasn’t_ patient and he had little time for things he didn’t show a natural aptitude for. Understanding complex Force theory was one of them. His relationship with the Force had always been an active one, based in the physical, not the metaphysical, and he saw no reason to seek to change that.

Luckily, he _did_ seem to have a flair for having Rey sit in his lap, and he embraced his new skill eagerly as she shifted to face him, his hands sliding around to her bare backside beneath the hem of his undershirt. He pulled her close and looked up into her lovely face while she bargained with him. Despite her demands, he couldn’t help but feel like her agreement to let him see the ancient texts was somewhat momentous. Somewhere in the last few hours, it had become entirely natural for them to give and take from each other in equal measure, trustingly, openly. 

Kylo was surprised by how quickly she’d acquiesced, and how easily he replied in return, “Okay. We have a deal.”

He was in the process of leaning up to seal the agreement with a kiss, his fingertips pressing little divots into the firm flesh of her ass cheeks, when the comlink at the doors to his quarters chimed the presence of someone on the other side, requesting entrance. At once, his body stiffened, his eyes flickering darkly to the airlock then back to Rey. They couldn’t be seen like this. The thought was clear in his mind and loud enough that he was sure she must be able to hear it too. As nice as this felt, having Rey draped, half-naked, across his lap, it would be their downfall if anyone were to see their easy familiarity at this early stage in his ‘breaking’ of her.

Wrapping his arms tightly around her, he stood, the legs of the chair screeching backward across the black, polished floor as he moved, before placing her down to stand. The handcuffs still lay on the floor where they’d been dropped, and he called them to his hand now, on a current of Force energy. He didn’t speak, but the plea was clear in his eyes and in his mind.

_Please put them on. It’ll only be for a few moments._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [ReyloBrit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReyloBrit/works) for beta reading for us, and to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for their endless support! ❤️❤️❤️


	16. Delicious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Follow my lead_ , his mind demanded vehemently, even while his mouth formed the hard edges of the words he spoke aloud. “Never forget: my permission can be revoked as easily as it’s given. You learned that the hard way earlier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 

Millennia of study – how many phenomena in the universe had undergone millennia of study only to be, still, riddled in obscurity? Or maybe the simpler truth was that there was just plenty she still didn’t know, plenty that would be difficult for anyone to understand who hadn’t delved into the finer points of Force metaphysical theory. It wasn’t something she would be able to find a practical application for any time soon, anyway, but as she had already admitted to herself, she enjoyed seeing that dense information transcribed on the pages opened on desk, so tenderly handled by an attentive hand. A hand she wanted to learn to write in, and ancient words she wanted to learn to speak fluently, and those skills were being bargained for without a hitch. A playful smirk ticked at the corners of her lips, leaning in closer to let her eyes dance across his face just as she felt him studying her own. His investment in the study of ancient texts, and his ability to glean dazzling threads of information from them, would, she felt certain, prove useful in creating a renowned, fully-woven study, of which his present folio was only a small part. How could she stand in the way of that? It was so lovely to hear him expound upon the things he’d discovered.

That thought was cleanly interrupted by the chime at the airlock, and she didn’t need to lock eyes with Kylo to feel the pressure of the imperative in his mind. They couldn’t be seen like this. He couldn’t be leaning up to kiss her as she was leaning down to kiss him, squeezing her thighs in as she felt his bare palms feeling beneath the hem of the shirt that fell in so many extra inches past her hips. They couldn’t be seen as anything more than captor and captive, and if whoever was on the other side of the door caught a glimpse of her dressed as she was, the scene would not be entirely convincing. Resisting the initial protest that rose in her throat as she was lifted, she kept herself held against him, gently finding the floor with the soles of her feet a moment later. A cool, stark change to the warmth of being in a broad lap, and she was prepared to be asked to step out of sight into his sleeping area, to make herself scarce for as long as it would presumably take to deliver the food he’d ordered. Instead, her gaze flicked to follow the handcuffs being called back from where they’d been mercifully dropped not so long ago, and a lead weight dropped from her chest down to her stomach.

He didn’t ask her aloud to put them on, which made it more difficult to outright refuse, or to voice her opposition to the request, even if it made sense in the context of the skit they were meant to be constructing. A prisoner should be restrained, and since she’d been delivered in handcuffs, it stood to reason that she should be in them now; she was still, after all, a prisoner. There was no argument, and there was no _time_ to argue, exhaling a long, thin breath through her nose as she held her hands out. It was like agreeing to be gagged, or blindfolded, and quite naturally, because it was a solid constraint. It muffled the Force just as bluntly as any other sense, and her heart skittered at the recent memory. There was no risk of being left alone for an indefinite period of time, now, however – at least she liked to think so, expressing her displeasure with a flinty, narrow glare up at her captor’s face. Surely there was a way around it, and surely an argument would only be met with harried bristling. It was only the plea reflecting earnestly in his eyes and the insistent burn of it across the bond that kept her wrists offered forward, although it wasn’t quite enough to tame a testy rebuttal, sent promptly back across the bond.

_Never again after this. Next time, you’ll just have to prove that you’ve broken me past the point of needing them._

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Kylo agreed with the briefest dip of his chin, his brain already whirring ahead to how they might be able to present such a farce with any sense of credibility. One thing he was certain of, however, was that as soon as the doors to his quarters opened, whoever was on the other side, they would be being observed, watched, assessed. How they behaved now would dictate the trajectory of their public relationship, so it was important that they get it right.

To that end, Kylo found that he was rather glad Rey was only half-dressed, wearing his undershirt and his cowl, yet willing to be subjected to the shackles again, albeit only briefly. It painted a picture, one he was fairly happy for Hux and the rest of his officers to see. It boldly declared that their Supreme Leader had already been successful in getting the last Jedi out of her clothes and had begun the process of replacing her pearl-white purity with his own brand of permeating darkness. The shackles added that she was still defiant enough to need restraining, lending credibility to the scene. It suggested a gradual progression. It suggested Kylo's 'plan' was working, and it gave them scope to develop on it further. It gave him hope that he would be able to keep his unspoken promise to Rey, to never have to put her in handcuffs again.

The sudden emptiness in his mind as the restraints snapped shut around Rey's wrists was as jarring now as it had been earlier, and he found himself silently repeating her condition as his own: _Never again, never again_. When Rey had blocked him out before, he had felt desolate and unmoored, but the loneliness now, after experiencing true unity, was almost unbearable. To compensate, he leaned down to capture her mouth in a desperate, searing kiss, quick but full of passion and promise, before breaking away from her and guiding her down onto one of the empty chairs at the table.

He scooped up his folio as he turned, slamming the cover shut and tucking the whole book out of sight behind his back, held in place by the waistband of his pants and covered by the hem of his loose-fitting shirt. When he reached the comlink by the doors, his fingers were heavier than usual on the buttons as they initiated the release, making up for the hesitancy he felt.

Amid the hydraulic rush of the doors sliding open, there was a series of beeps and whistles as a pair of service droids entered, bearing two large platters of prepared rations and a bowl of rather syrupy-looking reconstituted fruit, which leeched a sickly sweet smell into the air as it passed. Kylo held himself stiff and straight, stalking around behind them and watching closely as they made their way across to the table to lay the food down in front of Rey. They turned their photoreceptors on her curiously as they laid two places with dark metal plates and cutlery, before drawing out a black, stone pitcher of iced mintea and two matching cups from one of their storage compartments.

Kylo didn’t take his seat immediately once the droids had moved away to begin the job of tidying the chambers and collecting laundry. Instead, he hung back, watching, trying to assess what kind of footage they would be capturing for Hux’s perusal: bedsheets in disarray, boots, belts and lightsabers discarded, clothes strewn about the floor of the ‘fresher, the scent of sex and sweat still heavy in the air, despite the overlaying fragrance of soap and clean clothes. Did it look like the scene of a struggle, of a will being broken? Possibly not, but it would have to do, and he would play up his to part to sell it as best he could.

“You have my permission to eat,” he said coldly to Rey, dropping his gaze to observe her down the length of his long nose.

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Never again – that was a condition she intended on honoring, immediately feeling like both eyes had been jabbed from her skull as the cuffs closed shut around her waiting wrists. Only it was worse than that because it wasn’t as trivial as the loss of vision, which could be worked around if survival called for it, but it was the loss of that humming current between her mind and Kylo’s. The glowing thread by which she was anchored, especially here, where without it, she was relegated to the role of prisoner and little more. A bright river dammed. It was their hidden understanding that assured her of the truth of their new reality, so sweetly spoken in breathless whispers, and with the Force-smothering handcuffs in place, she could reach for no such reassurance. What she did have was the hot brand of his kiss against her lips, one she could only briefly, pleadingly return before he was breaking away again. To guide her down into one of the empty chairs at his table, an assignment she complied with, wearing a furrowed frown as her eyes tracked him to the doors.

The folio was tucked out of sight, and then there was the hydraulic release of the airlock, and the arrival of two service droids. It had often been the company of droids that she shared, on Jakku when she was assisting them out of greedy claws that did not discriminate between life and scrap, and on and off starships in various pockets of the galaxy. Droids were dependable and generally friendly, and easier to speak to than most sentients. When their parts were broken, they could be fixed. They were programmed with their missions and their morals and they adhered to them. Droids were stable and predictable and devoted to their causes. They were curious and engaging and she held a strange affinity for them, even these well-appointed droids in the service of the First Order. There was also the fact that they were delivering food, and the fact that she was starving, a longing cramp curling through her torso as the plates were laid on the table.

Rations, which was a satisfying enough sight in itself, but also a bowl of what was most certainly fruit, the syrupy texture and aroma of which snared the attention of her entire body, shifting impatiently where she sat. There was the sheen of dark cutlery, and a stone pitcher of something she wouldn’t be picky about sampling, leaning forward and then sitting back, failing for a moment to mask her shameless enthusiasm for what was a veritable smorgasbord of dinner.

“Thank you,” she offered her gratitude to the attendant droids, noting their acute photoreceptors, and their whirring beeps and whistles. Her familiarity with the functionality of those chirps and the appearance of a properly-maintained droid meant that she could not overlook what was plainly before her, turning to better regard one of the units as it dismissed itself to begin tidying up the mess they’d made. “I think your repulsorlift motor needs to be looked at,” she noted aloud, addressing the droid without thinking twice. “Or maybe your axial piston,” and she studied the droid’s not-quite-smooth movement for a moment longer before glancing back up, finding Kylo, still standing with his rigid posture, and she allowed the rest of her assessment to trail off in a mutter as she obediently righted herself at the table. “Probably the gyroscopic stabilizer, not that I know what model processors you use here. Looks like he needs it to be maintenanced, that’s all. Anyone can see that.”

But then she was being given permission to eat, and she didn’t need any additional prompting, although managing a utensil with her bound hands was going to prove, at best, an inelegant undertaking. Luckily, she felt vindicated in the expression of her displeasure: she was a captive, and if she was still ornery enough to require constraints, then there was no harm in venting her frustrations and her cheekiness as they struck, right?

“And how would you suggest I go about that, Supreme Leader?” She lifted her bound hands, serving him a frosty glare as she did. It was a cruel joke to lay out an inviting meal before her and leave her no way to easily approach it, glancing back to the busy droids. What, exactly, were they going to report? Just an image of the state of the room, which spoke for itself? Or an image of the refresher, which also spoke for itself, as well as her impromptu state of dress, which was probably a less clear message? Whoever was responsible for analyzing the footage would likely be satisfied simply with the fact that she was restrained, and Kylo was standing imperiously above her.

Bringing her gaze back to his face, prickling with energy at the danger gilding the situation, she lacked the restraint to _not_ openly provoke the relationship they were meant to be engaged in, tilting a thigh in order to send, within his line of sight, the edge of the too-big shirt slipping higher across her thigh, revealing a gleam of pearlier skin.

“Unless you’re going to help me?”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

The glimpse of creamy, white thigh, which Kylo was treated to as Rey shifted her leg – on purpose, he was sure – within his sightline, made it difficult for him to maintain the necessary expression of icy composure on his face. His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath, eyes dark and wanting, and his jaw worked his lips into an unforgiving line which belied the shiver of desire that passed through him. If it hadn’t been for the droids and the eyes he knew would be anxiously waiting to pour over the captured footage of them, he would have sunk down to his knees then and there, all thoughts of food driven from his mind, to feast on the pearly-white flesh of her thighs and the sweet, succulent treasure which he knew waited between them, barely hidden by the soft, tight-knit, black fabric of his borrowed undershirt.

Instead, he lifted his hand, sparing a quick and inconspicuous confirmatory glance at the nearest droid to ensure his actions were being noted, and sent a tendril of Force energy into the cold metal of the cuffs at her wrists until he heard the soft click of them unlocking and the clank which followed as they fell to the floor.

The relief was instantaneous as her consciousness flooded back against his, like a cool, refreshing wave of companionship and belonging. Still, he knew he couldn’t let his guard down – not yet.

_Follow my lead_ , his mind demanded vehemently, even while his mouth formed the hard edges of the words he spoke aloud. “Never forget: my permission can be revoked as easily as it’s given. You learned that the hard way earlier.”

His eyes did move down her body to her bare legs then, obviously, notably, as though calling to mind some previously meted punishment for her unsanctioned sojourn into the _Finalizer’_ s corridors, instead of the stilted declarations of love which had actually ensued, and the hot, wet press of bodies sliding against each other beneath the enveloping embrace of hot water and steam. He urged the memory of what was real through the threads of their bond as a counter to the picture he painted with his words.

“Now eat, before I change my mind.”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

That strange, addictive nebula of hunger opened and closed once again, its own vacillating organ, and she could see its fluctuations across Kylo’s face. Hunger written as dark want, hunger as twitches of flagrant desire, silent but bright as day. Hunger as restraint and hard edges and slow, mindful calculations. Hunger as simplicity, as they’d discovered once, twice, three times, and still it went on unsatisfied. Still, she could’ve shoved him back against the nearest burnished, black wall and climbed his body until for the sake of leverage he spun them around to discover some energetic, vertical love that made for a completely invasive and distracting daydream, right here in front of the dallying droids.

That spell was only broken as she felt a whisper of Force energy at her wrists, dusky gaze dropping to watch as the handcuffs came unhinged, and fell with a sharp, metallic slap to the floor. Oh, she could breathe – the sensation of his mind smoothing back over her own was met with a gracious sigh, eyes briefly falling closed as that relief cooled her like rain. Flexing her fingers, testing the reality of her freedom, she looked up as she felt the deep echo of a familiar voice in her head, _inside_ her head, just as it should be, meeting his eyes as the demand washed over her. The instruction was followed by the cold threat of the words he spoke aloud, and she tipped her chin to silently refute them. But, like any prisoner who had been soundly trounced, she slipped her gaze away and strayed from argument.

“I won’t forget. Every lesson has been a hard one. I know that I’m lucky to still be walking,” she acquiesced, attention falling to the food in front of her, slowly lifting the hands that were now at liberty to claim it. Forgoing the cutlery that had been provided, she instead moved in on the rations with impatient, nimble fingers, claiming starchy bites of bread and samples from across the plate of the prepared meal. The tantalizing scent wafting from the bowl of fruit was too much to resist, however, and as she leaned to pull the whole thing closer, she decided that it did indeed necessitate the use of a fork. Picking up the black utensil beside her plate, she scooped curiously into the syrupy concoction. A mesmerizing vision as she wondrously regarded it, bringing the bite to her mouth with a savoring hum as soon as the nectar-sweet juices spilled across her tongue.

It was a fine answer to the request she had made, and she obeyed the encouragement to feast before her captor’s permission could be revoked, dipping in for a second sample of the fruit before returning to what was left of the rations on the sleek, black plate. Would the luxury of food ever _not_ be such a rambunctious joy? That gustatory rapture, which she suddenly found sidling up against a hot, wet memory being urged across the bond, made her quiver where she sat. She was efficiently dispatching the rations, but she paused in order to let the vision sweep uninterrupted through her. She’d rashly challenged the new truths between them in the refresher, and she could have challenged them again, now, if the imprint of that love was not so freshly branded in her mind, and on her body. The reality was easily discernible from the act.

Crossing her legs beneath the chair she occupied, as if she could feel the ghost of his gaze riffling directly over the surface of her skin, warm and close, she plucked another forkful of fruit from the syrup-laden bowl, sending her own breathless memory coursing to Kylo’s mind in return.

_Shâsot, shâsot, shâsot._

“Don’t you want to eat?”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Kylo couldn’t quite establish whether Rey _meant_ for all her words to conjure up lascivious alternative meanings in his mind – it was entirely possible that his brain was still off-kilter from that tantalizing glimpse of creamy skin – but they did. After the way her thighs had trembled every time their coming together had catapulted them into a glimmering swathe of starlit delight, it really was a wonder of luck that she was still walking. Him too, for that matter. In fact, just the memory of the way her walls clenched deliciously around him as they both tumbled over the edge together was enough to make him feel weak at the knees, and that was without the heady, whispering thought, _Shâshot_ , being borne into his mind on the lividity of her recollection.

He could feel a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and he realized then that this kind of unbridled joy, such as that which Rey created in her wake, was far more difficult to keep from showing with his features than the kind of emotions he had grown used to hiding over the last seven years. He forced himself to look away from her as he clenched his teeth on his lightheartedness.

“As touching as it is that you’re concerned for my wellbeing, I’ll eat when I’m ready,” he replied coolly to her question, without glancing at her, although his mind sent out the vague communication of hope that there would be something left for him once he’d finished playing his part. After all, he’d realized there was no guarantee there would be, considering the way she’d attacked her rations and the bowl of fruit.

The second of the service droids rolled out of the ‘fresher, clutching Rey’s soiled, pale clothing in its metallic grips. Kylo took a step towards it before it could approach the laundry chute.

“No, take those to be laundered manually and have them returned in the morning, along with a selection of other outfits in the same size.” The droid hesitated, turning its photoreceptors on Kylo, as though trying to understand a foreign concept, but eventually let out a series of beeps which Kylo recognized as assent.

“Good,” he said, then remembered himself and glanced at Rey to say, “You’re our guest, after all. I want you to be comfortable.” He annunciated the last word in a series of clipped syllables, his tongue lingering behind his top teeth for a moment once he’d finished as he looked down at her, not bothering to disguise the way his eyes darkened now they were free to wander over her face again.

✦ ✦ ✦ 

There was something satisfying in the way he couldn’t look at her – she wasn’t sure if it was the bawdy exchange of still-steaming memories or the fact that they were being fearlessly shared in the presence of the distracted droids, but it was pleasing nonetheless, granting her a wry smile. To know that she wasn’t the only one who had been so deeply affected by their accumulating encounters was as sweet as the syrup she was licking from her fork, glancing at Kylo’s face as he turned away, and then detecting his unspoken wish to partake in the meal that was rapidly disappearing. Snorting a soft breath, she honored the request as it whispered against her mind, pushing the bowl and its remaining fruit away from her, and picking instead at the crumbs that remained on the plate she’d been presented with. He might decide to eat when he was ready, but that was only possible if anything was left unscavenged by that time, and as they were both surely well-aware by this point, her restraint was as collected and controlled as the sea flooding its beaches.

Watching curiously as her captor would block the droid who had taken up the task of picking up her shucked clothing, she wandered her gaze from the dirt-smeared, white linen to the dutiful droid, and then up to Kylo, taking a pinch of the rations from his plate while wondering what other outfits she could possibly be provided with. The First Order likely didn’t find itself faced with the predicament of having to dress guests too often. The concept of a ‘guest’ was probably disturbing the balance of proceedings as it was – prisoners, after all, were not to be treated with fresh clothing. Needless to say, her inquisitive flame was constantly alight, and a part of her was strangely relieved to know she would have something else to choose from, aside from the familiar desert tunic and wraps that had survived countless untidy rigors. They wouldn’t hold up forever.

Glancing back up while downing the food she’d stolen, she studied Kylo’s face for a long moment before skirting her attention again to the droids, once again finding herself wondering exactly how much they understood. Droids were more logical, perceptive and intuitive than most people, it went without question, and she carefully swallowed the bite she’d taken before dusting her fingers off above her now empty plate. It seemed prudent to maintain some image of resistant belligerence, if there was to be any ongoing ‘breaking,’ any reason for her to be kept in the Supreme Leader’s quarters, and she kept her ankles crossed beneath her chair, allowing herself to be yoked with the condescending title, and bristling accordingly. _Com-fort-a-ble_ – why did the enunciation of that word read like ancient Sith poetry, and why could she envision the tango his tongue performed as he spoke it?

“Oh, no. You want to be comfortable looking at me, which is why you made me dress like _you_ ,” she retorted, as if wrapping herself in the oversized undershirt and the draping shawl had been an affront to her tastes, sliding her gaze after the droids as they appeared to accomplish the assorted tasks they had come to see to, whirring as they rolled a path back to the closed doors, awaiting the rush of the airlock as the input was clicked into the control panel. Then there was the unhitching sigh of the doors permitting their escape, and the mirrored sigh as they closed again, leaving Rey to scale Kylo once more with her eyes, delighting in the heavy shade of his gaze.

“You better eat, this is your last chance.”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Kylo waited with bated breath until he heard the hydraulic sigh of the doors closing fast behind the droids, before allowing his mask to slip and the corners of his mouth twitch upwards as the tension in his wide shoulders dissipated. He could feel the tremor in the Force which signaled the two droids moving away along the corridor, taking their intel with them and leaving him and Rey deliciously alone again.

He cocked his head as he looked down at her, pupils blown wide. She had played her part admirably but had almost killed him in the process, with her little, titillating comments and flashes of skin. She was going to pay for that now.

“I think I will,” he replied gruffly, circling closer until he could yank her chair out away from the table and sink his whole, large body down between her bare knees. With one hand, he coaxed her legs further apart, while the other found the back of her chair and caged her in place.

His lips were on her thigh in an instant, sucking hot, bruising kisses into the stretch of buttery skin she’d tempted him with a few moments before, while his hand slipped up the outside of her leg to grasp her hip tightly. After a moment, he gave a sharp tug, pulling her pelvis towards his waiting mouth with a guttural grunt.

Skin met slick, hot skin and Kylo wasted no time burying his face into the sweet, hot place between her thighs as his fingers pawed at her hip, soft groans of pleasure vibrating against her core.

“Are you comfortable now, my guest?” he rumbled, each probing word punctuated with a long, wide swipe of his tongue through her folds while the tip of his nose nudged against the pearl-like pleasure point at the peak of her slit. His senses were full of the fresh, heady taste of her, like ocean spray, vanilla and musk, far more satisfying than the sickly-sweet, syrupy smell of the reconstituted fruit that sat in its bowl on the table. Rey could have it all, for all he cared. He’d found his favorite flavor.

✦ ✦ ✦ 

It was true, his opportunity to feast was fast disappearing because neither the fruit in the bowl nor the remaining rations on his plate were going to last much longer. Hours of forgotten hunger had swiftly surged to the surface, which meant none of the available food stood any chance of survival. That warning seemed to have missed its mark, however, or at least half of its mark – everything, after all, was thoroughly soaked in a double-meaning. Sinking into his wide, black pupils for a moment, and feeling her heart pitch in excitement as she did, she lost the chance to repeat her warning, finding instead that he was abruptly occupying the space in front of her, his broad, thick body claiming a spot between her knees. Parting them to accommodate his considerable mass, her own muscles naturally giving under the easing pressure of his hand, she flitted her hazel gaze over his face, having to fight back the itch of a smile at the corners of her lips.

The arm that boxed her in against the chair suggested his intent, and she dropped her own hands to the edges of the seat on which she sat, fingers curling there as his mouth appeared at her thigh, quick and hot as a flame. And insistent, tracking heavily up the length of her anxious thigh in such a way that her heart flew into her mouth, a startled breath slipping free. Immediately antsy beneath the humid, tropical heat of his mouth, she squeezed the edges of the chair in an effort to keep herself steady while a needy pulse began funneling heat directly down to her hips. Then, somehow, a firm hand was grasping her by the hip, and an unsuspecting yelp escaped as she slid forward, greeting his mouth with a hot, sleek kiss from the warmest part of her. A spot that was already urgently unfurling its desire to have him buried in it, and the rumbling, vibrating energy of his voice there, a frequency that spilled bright lightning through her, gave her no choice but to drop her head back with an incredulous, blooming moan.

His mouth must’ve been an anomaly: she couldn’t fathom how its disparate pieces fit together to create an apparatus that was… _this_. Sweltering and sudden and overwhelming and somehow also meticulous, attentive; even the tip of his nose fit in that maddeningly flawless way against the dangerous nub that was celebrating his arrival with giddy whirls of pleasure through her hips. _Comfortable_ might not have been the most accurate description for how she felt, but she did love feeling every syllable rumbled and licked against her throbbing heat, toes curling as she shifted, another restless shimmy from her shoulders down to her lavished hips.

There were, naturally, no coherent words orbiting close at hand, and she answered with a breathless, hitching sigh. Briskly lifting a leg to curl over his shoulder, she used the new leverage to urge him closer, already a mess. That sinful descent had begun a little while before, however, when she’d been interrupted soon after placing herself in his lap. No interruptions now, it would seem, and she growled at the intensity of her desire, how wildly her body craved the attention of his tongue, his hands, everything, always.

“This isn’t what I _meant,_ ” she strived to argue, even if it was only half true, squirming, lifting her hips and sliding aside the knee that wasn’t hooked around him, offering more.

“If you don’t – kriff! – you’re going to – I’ll – right _here_ ,” there was no sensible route for the words to take, only the rising, flustered need to consume him entirely. “Let me have you.”

✦ ✦ ✦ 

The leg Rey had draped over his shoulder made the angle infinitely better for him. It made it easier to curl his arm around her until his fingers could dig into her ass cheek and hold her tight against him while he feasted on her.

He didn’t need to hear her incoherent ramblings or feel the little tremors running through her thighs to know that he was succeeding in his aim to make her fall apart; the bond was awash with the bright, hot sensation of her pleasure. It was close to divine, letting his mind sink into hers while his tongue probed her entrance and feeling the searing result of his own ministrations. Although second-hand, shivers of delight ran through him as readily as they coursed through her, massaging his ego as they went. He might not be well-practiced at this pursuit but he _was_ enthusiastic, and he’d dedicated himself to learning from her every reaction. He was enjoying having her dancing on the end of his tongue as a result.

_Good_ , he thought in response to her stuttered warning, unwilling to speak and waste the valuable resource of his tongue. _I want you to come. Right here. I want you to paint my face with starlight._

The hand he had braced against the back of the chair moved then, running down over her hip, his fingers lightly caressing the outside of her thigh before snaking down and underneath her leg. His lips closed over her little bud of nerves, making room for his fingertips to trail through her slick folds. His calloused skin was eager to become reacquainted with them, with the indomitable warmth of her.

Quickly learning to multitask, he sucked and felt her give a delicious throb against his tongue. He smiled wetly against her skin, pleased with his new discovery, then did it again as he mercilessly speared her on two long, thick fingers, curling them inside her as though beckoning her more fully onto his ravenous mouth.

✦ ✦ ✦ 

There was no hope, as soon as it had begun – once his mouth was speaking that language of wordless rapture decisively against her core, there was no choice but to be completely ruined by it. There was also nothing else she wanted more, of course, although it felt necessary to rally some sort of defense before she was reduced to the quaking, gasping aftershocks of shameless pleasure. Right here at the dinner table, and she felt she had done her part in warning him of the imminent surrender. He didn’t seem troubled by the possibility, however, and she instead felt the encouragement of his mind low and temptingly close against her own. _Good._

The words that followed that verdict left her with a breathless, quivering moan. They were already bathing in starlight; she was, at least, because she could feel it kindling beneath her skin, collecting in the restless curve of her hips, and flickering inward from the edges of her mind. That same vivid, dancing glow she was becoming more and more familiar with, as if it was something that came from Kylo, part and parcel, as infectious as the novelty of his laughter or the smiles that dimpled his cheeks. Something she was glimpsing more and more of, and, as a result, needed more of. A delicious addiction, and those exuberant flares were crowding the dark of her closed eyes as they rolled shut. Pleasure, for which there was no satisfactory definition, unraveled itself in glorious fluency over each of her nerves, individually, and they could do nothing but quiver.

It was hot and cool, bright and blinding, steady and unpredictable. It was only a tongue, after all, but that simple, enthusiastic muscle was somehow capable of designing an intricate stairway up into the stars, just so it could be gleefully sundered, bringing all the stars and all their raining light down with it. Tearing her hands away from the edge of the chair to instead tangle roughly in his hair, she felt her breath rising on the back of a fluttering moan, unprepared for the sliding touch of his fingertips. If there was a way to ever be prepared, to not be taken by the joyful surprise of him touching her, she didn’t know it. The pull of his lips against her flaming, pulsing bud was too much, pleasure ricocheting, throbbing, and she felt herself already strung tight beyond what she could resist. She held there just long enough for a horizon full of eager stars to gather at the edge of the unique cliff he always brought her to. A perilous balance, the final, keening note of a song that could not be played any higher, and then his fingers were burrowing inside a heat that was begging to be filled. There was room for his name to clutter and chirp across her tongue – “KyloKyloKylo”— and then the knot came undone.

Crying out her delight, she rode the motion of his curling fingers while spasmodically clenching the leg she’d wrapped around his shoulders, throbbing deliriously around his fingers and against his mouth. _Paint my face with starlight_ – it was a rich, shimmering, rippling energy that he’d roused to life, and she let him taste it now, let it wash over him like the flood of daybreak, painted him in her hot, wet, ecstatic, elysian light, and then collapsed bonelessly around his beautiful head, heart wheeling.

✦ ✦ ✦ 

Kylo would _never_ grow tired of hearing his name on Rey’s lips as she slipped into ecstasy, no matter how many times he heard it. She said it like a chant, a prayer, desperately and reverently, and he felt their bond flood with twinkling, glittering starlight as she did. It passed through her and into him, filling him with a glow so bright that it threatened to banish all his darkness.

The experience of feeling an orgasm second hand was an entirely unique one. Kylo had been supplying his own pleasure for years, and he knew the waves of flame and the heady release of tension well, but to feel the rolling wave of _Rey_ ’s pleasure through her mind, to feel the steady unraveling of her by his lips and tongue and fingers, was nothing short of religious. Unclouded by his own release, his mind was able to focus in on the pinpoints of her bliss, each bright, shining star glittering behind her eyelids, as he basked in the knowledge that _he_ had given this to her.

For so long, all he had dealt anyone was pain and death, fear and anxiety, but this was sheer pleasure, unadulterated joy; it was easily recognizable from this distance, with Rey’s fingers twisting tightly in his hair and her thighs trembling around his ears.

He grinned against her slick skin, unable to hold back his pride, as he lapped at her lazily. Eventually, when he felt her coming back down out of the stars, he withdrew his hand, moving it around to caress her hip instead. Smugly, he lifted his chin – still glossy with her – to meet her eye, before pushing up from his knees and taking his place in the seat beside her. With one hand, he wiped her juices away from his swollen lips, with the other, he pinched up a morsel of the food she’d abandoned. He popped it into his mouth and chewed slowly, his eyes still glued to hers.

“Delicious.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for their endless support! ❤️
> 
> **Posting schedule update:** It’s been a wonderful 13 weeks, watching you all interact with our story. We’ve loved receiving every single kudos, comment and Twitter like. 
> 
> As some of you know, during that time, I (Hannah, a.k.a. Everren) haven’t been able to actively write due to real life circumstances, so everything you’ve seen had been prewritten. 
> 
> Now, although we are writing again (!!!), we’re running low on prewritten material, so we’re going to slow down the posting schedule to **once every fortnight** for the time being, to give ourselves the opportunity to get some more words under our belts and hopefully avoid having to pause posting while we catch up.
> 
> Thank you, as always, for following along with our interpretation of these two space idiots’ stories and for all your kind words of encouragement and appreciation. It means the world to us and we look forward to finding out what the future holds for them together! ❤️


	17. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His gaze was still on her, intense and searching. It raked her face for a sign that she understood what he was really asking: _What can I do to keep you with me always?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 

‘Delicious,’ indeed – the intoxicated starlight that danced dizzily before her was far more sumptuous than any of the delivered food had been. Far more delicious than any food she’d yet discovered, truthfully, although Rey already felt convinced that she would never discover a meal that was half as satisfying as having Kylo’s eager mouth between her thighs. Gradually relinquishing her hold, eyes blinking through her daze to find him looking up at her, she was only able to exchange a lackadaisical smile for the smug expression he wore. He also wore the gleaming evidence of her ecstasy, another smear of starlight, which she noted as he rose to sit beside her. The tops of her shoulders quivered at the sight.

Breaking from his gaze just long enough to watch as his fingers plucked a bite of food from the briefly forgotten plate, she followed its progress up to his mouth and then found his eyes again. The lupine intensity of his gaze chased another chill across her collarbones, and she held his stare just long enough to feel like he had plumbed her soul, skirting her attention instead to the plate she had cleared earlier. Licking a finger, she used it to collect the crumbs that remained, carefully assuring nothing was left behind. For basic rations, if that’s what they were, she was perfectly satisfied. The fruit had been decadent, too, though she knew that that rosy judgment was something she could’ve passed on just about anything in her current state of mind, floating and glowing.

“Not bad as far as rations go,” she chimed her agreement, not without a coy smile, sitting back once there was nothing left to scavenge from her plate.

“You _were_ supposed to show me something from your secret diary before eating anything else, but I’ll forgive you this time,” and it wasn’t exactly as if she was inclined to complain, glancing back at his face and then reaching to take a small pinch from the plate in front of him. “What’s that cocky look for, anyway?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo’s eyes followed Rey’s fingers to his plate, then back to her mouth, watching interestedly as she consumed the morsel of food. He was curious to note that it didn’t bother him in the slightest, her helping herself to what was rightfully his, not when she’d already given him so much _more_. It called to mind their run-in on Starkiller Base, when the Skywalker lightsaber had responded to her call over his. He had expected jealousy or righteous anger to overwhelm him then, but it had been confusion, then awe which had reigned supreme in his mind. He’d wanted to understand her, know her, teach her. He still did. He wanted to learn everything there was to know about her and teach her everything of him in return.

“I like being responsible for your pleasure,” he replied with a nonchalant shrug, picking up a fork with one hand and reaching behind himself with the other to pull out the folio from its place tucked securely against his back. “And it’s _not_ a secret diary,” he reminded her pointedly, dropping it on the table for her to peruse at her leisure.

Taking up a knife to pair with his fork, he began in earnest on what Rey had left of his meal. He would have shared the whole lot with her, but as soon as the first teasing mouthful had passed his lips he’d realized just how _hungry_ he was, and not just for her delicious cunt. She would have to make do with stealing from the edges while there was still anything left to steal. Perhaps it was because of all the energy he’d spent, needing to be recouped, or perhaps it was the well-above-average nature of the company, but he found himself enjoying his rations far more than usual.

“You realized they were gathering reconnaissance on us,” he stated between mouthfuls, “the droids.” He didn’t phrase it as a question; he already knew Rey was smart enough to have figured it out without his help, probably before they’d even entered the room. “I’ll take you to the bridge when we wake tomorrow to continue the façade.” He paused, flashing her a wry smirk. “Assuming you continue to behave yourself.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Maybe it should’ve been alarming, how easy it was to fall into easy comfort and trust in this new dynamic between them. If there’d been a time for aloof assessment, for a cold calculation of what risks could and could not be afforded, that time had come and gone. She’d given him everything, bared everything and confessed everything; in return, she felt in the center of her soul that she had, in her most vulnerable moments, been fully reciprocated. He’d given, and bared, and confessed – she had no reason not to believe him. If he’d crafted any vengeful designs on her life, or had planned to take advantage of her arrival with him, wouldn’t it have already come to pass? Wouldn’t he have already confined and _truly_ subdued her? All she’d found so far was his shameless devotion to her, mind and body. He’d freed her, healed her, taught her, bathed her, loved her more ways than she cared to count, and now dined with her. Trust had already taken hopeless root.

Responding only with two raised brows as he took responsibility for her pleasure, she reached to claim the folio as soon as it was dropped on the table, pulling it in front of her. Flipping it open at random, she wandered her gaze over the collection of foreign runes and neatly inscribed notes. It wasn’t ever going to stop being fascinating. It also wasn’t going to stop being a secret diary, regardless of Kylo’s insistence to the contrary, and she only drew her attention away in order to watch him eat. With much more gusto than she would’ve anticipated, though she realized that, in her mind, she’d never imagined him sitting down to a plate of food. It just didn’t occur to her as something his body needed, the way a comet tearing through the sky didn’t need to stop and fuel itself. A part of her had been under the impression that the specter of Kylo Ren simply rose, ruled, and slept. There was no place in that haunted vision for the mundane task of eating.

It was, of course, anything but mundane: to be perfectly frank, it was almost titillating, witnessing the joyful way he cleared his plate. The action of his mouth tended to have that effect, whether it was eating or enunciating the roughly smithed words of ancient Sith or Coremaic, somehow turning them smooth as water with his tongue. Maybe it was just the fact that she had, seconds ago, surrendered to that same frenzy of ravenous hunger against her pulsing skin. It was mesmerizing to watch that same spirit and determination work its way through his rations, and she stared like any stupefied bystander at a shocking spectacle. It kept her from pilfering any more snatches of food from his plate, at least, and for a long moment it kept her from registering the fact that he’d spoken at all, gaze flicking to his eyes once she realized he had.

“Yes,” she agreed, gradually honing in on the import of his words. They were being spied on just as they were being fed; that had been clear. Hence the brief act they’d put up, to be sure the footage revealed exactly what anyone else in the First Order would hope to see: the Supreme Leader breaking the last Jedi. “Send in the droids when no one’s brave enough to check on you themselves.” And who would dare? His officers struck her as malicious and petty, but not courageous enough to ask questions, or at least not courageous enough to demand answers.

Drawing her fingers along the edges of the page she’d opened up to, she let her imagination wander to their first venture to the bridge. A secure space she wouldn’t be welcomed into, undoubtedly, which naturally made it all the more intriguing. Lifting her free hand to finger over the damp ends of hair that fell loose around her shoulders, not yet used to having it fall there, she began to look again at the inscrutable page before her. Not without a scoff, in open dismissal of the accusation that came next.

“I _was_ behaving myself. Let’s just hope you don’t fall to your knees right there on that lovely, polished, black floor. The view would be nice, though,” and she immediately lifted a hand to vaguely edit the remark. “Out the viewports, I mean.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Despite the years of eating only rations alone in his quarters, the lessons of Kylo’s upbringing hadn’t completely worn off and, despite the speed with which he ate, he managed to wield his cutlery with an inherent grace. However, hunger won out at the very last, and he found himself eagerly scraping his plate of the last traces of food with the edge of his fork, before his memories of Elsie, his nanny droid, firmly asserting that ‘senators' sons _do not scrape’_ were able to dissuade him.

He looked up at Rey with an amused half-smile, his eyes glittering with heady promise like the stars he could sense her imagining on the other side of his bridge’s viewport, and set his cutlery neatly down as he leaned back in his chair. He laced his fingers together across his stomach as he stretched out like a manka cat, and let his head fall slightly to one side to watch her.

It was true, what she’d said; she had played along well, but it occurred to him that Rey’s idea of ‘behaving’ was a long way short of First Order expectations on the matter. His gaze played across the untamed, tumbling waves of damp hair at her shoulders which let their droplets seep into his cowl, then flickered down to the long, lean but muscular length of her legs, which had been draped so wantonly around his ears only a short time ago. Her strength had been forged in the heat of the Jakku sun and tempered by the many adversities she’d faced over the years, at least some of which had to be attributed to him. She was a wild thing, untameable, like an ocean storm, and he knew he wouldn’t have her any other way. She was certainly as refreshing as wind and rain and cool, salt spray. Here, with the taste of her fresh on his lips, he felt as though he was awake, truly awake, for the first time in a long time, buffeted into consciousness by the onslaught of her.

Still, it was going to be interesting, trying to find a place for the tempest that was Rey in amongst the regimented world of the First Order. He knew that it wasn’t her world, that she wasn’t there because she felt any sympathy for the cause or agreed with their methods, but she had said she would stay, for _him_ , and (despite the disbelief that still abounded at his uncharacteristically good fortune) he would find a way to make it work.

They should probably talk about how, exactly.

“Do you have other—” He had been going to say ‘demands’, it was on the tip of his tongue, but he realised how unwilling to acquiesce to her every whim it would make him sound, and that simply wouldn’t be an accurate representation of his feelings on the matter, considering how he was sure he would walk across fire for her if she wished it, so he quickly modified his question. “—requests, in return for staying? Aside from sitting in on the Supreme Council and all the—” He waved his hand at the folio. “ _’secret diary’_ stuff.”

His gaze was still on her, intense and searching. It raked her face for a sign that she understood what he was really asking: _What can I do to keep you with me always?_

✦ ✦ ✦

Even his hunger was somehow graceful, refined, like his handwriting. Efficient but fastidious. Pleasing to behold. He’d learned it somewhere, she assumed: someone in the luxury of his early years had taught him to hold a fork that way, just as he’d been taught to take such studious notes. A hand that careful had to be trained, like the mastery of any tool or weapon. Glancing over to find his plate cleared, she brushed a sheaf of dark-damp hair behind her ear before finding his eyes, and then discovering that she was unable to keep from reflecting a smile back. There was no reason not to, anymore – she was no longer under the obligation to act like she despised being here. Running her gaze down the length of his relaxed body, she eventually returned to the opened folio in front of her, flipping to a new page that was just as indecipherable as the first.

His question took her by surprise, and she was dismayed to feel, before anything else, an old, instinctual flicker of something base and covetous. Requests? At any other time, in any other place, it would have been a prime opportunity to gain what she needed, which was primarily portions. Shelter, weapons, information? Or, later – a promise of safety for those she loved among the rebels? That odd urgency faded just as quickly: she was being provided with rations, and any other cravings she might make known on top of that, as evidenced by the bowl of fruit. She had shelter, in the form of the fiercely-defended privacy of the Supreme Leader’s own quarters. What need did she have now for weapons, or information? She had her lightsaber, and beneath her fingers, right now, was more information than she could ever hope to absorb. There was no part of her that believed that, should she ask, Kylo wouldn’t divulge anything she requested to know. And safety for the rebels? The First Order’s eye was not fixed on them right now, was it? She had everything that, up to this point in her life, she’d ever let herself crave. And far more.

Blinking at the realization, never before in two decades having felt every last need met, she looked up from the folio again, and then around the tidied quarters. When her wandering gaze finally returned to Kylo’s face, she spent a moment searching him as he searched her, sensing there was more to the question than the words being asked. _In return for staying_ – they weren’t, as far as she was concerned, in the middle of a bargain. She was no longer bartering for her own safety or freedom. That frightened fury had been abandoned in Generis’ forest clearing.

“You don’t have to _keep_ me here, you know,” she let her confusion surface, puzzled that he should think he needed to make the arrangement worth her while. Maybe, if he hadn’t already given her a home in the circle of his arms, she would have demanded compensation. Maybe if her heart had still felt hollow, riddled with holes, she would still be looking for ways to fill it. But for the first time, it wasn’t. “I only want you.”

It was true, but it was such a blunt, bare truth with absolutely nothing attached to it save her unfathomable attachment to Kylo, that she promptly amended it.

“But since you’re offering, I do want to see everything else in that cupboard of yours,” as she still sourly recalled how quickly he’d locked it, and from there, her superfluous wishes abounded. “And I want more bowls of fruit, and I want you to spar with me every day, and to teach me how to read all of this, and speak it the right way,” and then, looking up, a sudden, heartfelt wish. “And I want to find that starlight temple.” The unspoken meaning was in her eyes, but not her words: _And that’s where I want to stay._

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo's chest rose and fell, lifting the hands draped over his abdomen with it, as he let her words sink in.

_I only want you._

It was a strange feeling, to be wanted. Not for any purpose, not because of any expectation or legacy, not for his power, but just for being him, because _he was wanted_. It sent an unexpected rush of warmth flooding through him, outwards from his heart. Eventually, he felt his lips twitch upwards at the edges, in an unsure but heartfelt acknowledgement of her truth, before he leaned across the space between them to press a tentative kiss to Rey's cheek. It was quick and chaste but he channelled all his rediscovered ability to love into it, hoping his immense gratitude would somehow seep into her through the pores of her warm, soft skin.

After lingering for a moment, just breathing in the scent of her, he sat back in his chair. Her more trivial requests would be easy to fulfil. After all, they aligned with his own wants: a sparring partner who would keep him on his toes, to be able to watch the delight in her eyes as she tucked into bowls of fresh jogan and shuura fruits as soon as he could get his hands on them, to share all his secrets with her and have someone finally _know_ him, understand him. It was all he'd never dared to wish for, a true partnership of equals, and here she was, asking him for it, as if he could conceivably refuse her. He gave a little dip of his chin in assent.

The starlit temple by the sea, their bodies laid side by side in the grass, hands intertwined, as they stared into the vastness of space, a world in which either of them had the time or freedom to just _be_... That would be harder to come by. But he had already promised her that he would find that place for her, that time, even if he had to build it himself with his own two hands.

"And what about the war?" he asked, finding that his voice had grown thick while he'd been silent. The conflict which raged through the galaxy still seemed like a near-insurmountable obstacle standing between them and that time of grey robes and sea-salt spray on the wind. The First Order might not have featured in the future he’d wished for the pair of them, but it was part of his present. There was no denying that. Would his pride allow him to abandon everything he’d worked for if she were to ask?

“I want to bring it to an end, so we can be free to do whatever we want,” he said quickly, before she had the chance to make that request. There was a hard edge to his tone, but it immediately softened again when he asked, “Will you help me find a way to do that?”

He didn’t want to give her a life on the run, always having to look over their shoulders to stay one step ahead of their pursuers – his side, or hers, it didn’t matter much, the outcome would be the same if they were caught. He wanted to give her a place that was theirs, the kind of belonging he guessed neither of them had ever felt much of in the past, and the assurance that she would never be left alone again.

✦ ✦ ✦

The wants of any sentient were undoubtedly plentiful, and ever-changing, depending on circumstances. There would always be hunger – the relentless hunger which was the key to survival, and also more trivial hungers, for possessions and the fleeting satisfactions of status or propriety. She’d spent every day of her living memory working to meet the demands of survival, and she had spent countless, private hours wishing and dreaming and hoping and wanting, for things which had never come. A family, a home, and the peace that could surely only be found there. She’s begged the universe to show her, to let her know she wasn’t alone, that all her soul-wrenched pining hadn’t been for nothing. Proof that she’d been holding out for something. She just hadn’t ever guessed that she would find her belonging _here_ , on a First Order flagship, in the arms of the Supreme Leader. How was anyone else supposed to understand? There were moments when it felt like it didn’t matter if they ever would – as she felt the brush of his lips against her cheek, the warmth that bloomed through her felt vibrant enough to outshine any doubt.

And, at the same time, it would never be that simple. There was no version of the universe in which they could simply vanish together. She might have felt like an island to begin with, unattached to anything or anyone at all in the ocean of the galaxy. One day was linked to the next, an inexorable chain, and it had held her firmly where she was. Now, that was no longer true; her life was a thread cast out and entwined with many others. Everyone who had worked alongside her to fortify the Resistance, and pursue a flicker of justice across the danger of the open stars. Han. Finn. Leia.

What about the war? She glanced up as he asked, and then lacked the time to answer before he was speaking again. The short and simplistic solution was that it needed to end; the complication was in deciding how. Had the galaxy ever known a lasting peace, anyway? Maybe it didn’t matter, because maybe it could now. Riffling the corners of the folio’s pages with her thumb, she spent a moment in silent observation of the tides of Kylo’s tone. Thick and thoughtful, and then brisk and hard, and then soft again. There was an instinctive answer waiting within her, but instinct was also responsible for the beat of a pause before she spoke it. “We don’t need to find a way,” and it was suggested carefully, as she glanced down at the note-filled pages and then back up again to find his face, flicking to his dark eyes. “You already know the way.”

But that wasn’t simple either, was it? He couldn’t turn his back on this order, and she wasn’t sure he would, even if given the chance. He’d built it, after all, terrible as it was, or at least he was operating under the illusion that he’d built it. He’d inherited it, that was true, and he’d refined it to his narrow-minded quests and predilections after the death of his master, but what would he have built, truly, if he’d had any say in it from the start? She couldn’t ask him to abandon the only solid structure he’d had to hold onto, the only thing that belonged to him. But maybe she could help him to take it down, and then, together, build something they hadn’t yet imagined possible.

She also knew, reluctantly, that they would never be completely free to do whatever they wanted. They were a part of the fabric of the galaxy, after all, and therefore obligated to contribute to its balance. If they were lucky, after all was said and done, maybe that obligation would no longer demand violence from them. Slowly closing the folio, trying to keep her head above her surging thoughts without unfamiliar letters flooding over the top, she dropped her fingers to skim along the hem of the borrowed shirt she wore. More miscellaneous thoughts, like leaves sent scattering by a rolling wind: how often had this shirt rested against his skin, beneath his quilted tunic, while he discussed, with obedient officers, the next arc of destruction? How many nights had he worn it to sleep, and how many frantic or snarling heartbeats had it covered as he dreamed of death for those she had allied with? How often had it wicked his sweat, in the vice of fear or rage or hope? What would it take to be sure that she could wear it again, and again and again, with the sky _not_ ripped by fire above them?

“I’ll help you. We’ll build something better.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo felt his expression souring. He knew ‘the way’ that Rey was thinking of: surrender, pull the forces of the First Order out of annexed territories and scatter its resources to the winds, hand the Resistance the victory it had been scrabbling for all these months and allow it to spore into a _new_ New Republic, complete with all the festering corruption and Core favouritism of the old one.

Quite aside from the fact that the thought alone made Kylo’s blood boil in his veins, he wasn’t so arrogant as to believe it was something he could achieve in the simplistic way Rey no doubt imagined it could be done. His High Command would never allow it, and there were as many ambitious, ruthless officers, simply waiting for an opportunity to call ‘treason’ and step into the shoes of Supreme Leader, as there were rays in the First Order emblem.

No, the route to peace and freedom wasn’t going to be a simple one, and he was on the verge of telling her that when she spoke again. Her words acted like a cool balm to the heat of the rage that had begun to bubble inside him. It was what he’d wanted, after all, what he’d asked for when he’d offered her his hand: the chance to build something new, something better, with her at his side. They were powerful enough to achieve it, he knew. He believed it even more so now than when he’d first voiced the theory. The evidence was scrawled neatly on every page of the folio in front of her on the table.

With a scraping of chair legs across a polished floor, Kylo pushed back from the table and rose to his feet.

“Yes we will,” he said, his vindication and determination ringing clear in his tone as he extended his hand towards her. It was the same hand he’d offered her in Snoke’s throne room, the same hand he’d used to reach out across the stars to her, and he wanted her to take it now. “Together.”

✦ ✦ ✦

They would find a way, or they would make a way; what other choice was there? They would do it, however, without neglecting, abandoning or destroying the current world that real people still lived and breathed in, no matter how appealing that cleansing vision might have been for Kylo. That was what he’d seemed to be offering her once before: the galaxy burned clean, with the two of them at the helm, ruling the ashes. It wouldn’t have worked then and it wasn’t going to work now, but there were other avenues forward. One of them was far more clear-cut than the others, a smooth road home, if he would only see it, and take it. The tension that coiled through the bond assured her that he wasn’t prepared to leave behind everything currently at his command. There was an aggressive heat there, and a part of her was tempted to provoke it: why not just come home? Why couldn’t he swallow his pride, dismantle his machine, and face the future offered to him by his father, and his mother, and Rey herself? How easily the war would be won with him on the right side.

His aggravation, which serrated the edges of the Force, just as soon faded, and she lifted her eyes after him as he rose. They _could_ build something new, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what it would look like. An improvement over the presiding system, no doubt, and if he was going to tailor her visions of the future into his own, then she would, at the very least, have the authority to veto explosions of violence. His agreement brought with it a splash of relief, and her gaze dropped to his outstretched hand while a breath slipped free. What way forward was there but together? It was safer that way, not only for the two of them, but for everyone outside of the ship they resided on, who was still at the First Order’s mercy. This alliance between herself and Kylo was the only security she could promise them, even if it could not be revealed as such.

Her gaze lingered on his hand, curling her own into a small fist and then allowing her fingers to carefully flex open again. It was only symbolic – she had, after all, already formally placed herself in his custody, and bound herself to him in more ways than she’d ever dared to dream were real. Taking his hand now was redundant, after the promises they’d made each other, and after the bare confessions they’d revealed. But it was a gesture she hadn’t been able to return before, not in Snoke’s throne room, and only momentarily across the stars. The hesitation was brief, just long enough to relive her previous, fluttering uncertainties – were the visions they’d seen when their fingertips touched the same? Had the Force manipulated the connection between them, bringing them to a point where they would soundly destroy each other with their parallel strength and their certainty in what they’d seen? Would she be sealing a false promise by taking his hand now, knowing what _she’d_ seen?

She’d seen him turn, and she’d seen herself helping him to do so. What she hadn’t seen, in the interim, was her plummeting fall into _Kylo_ , her aching, shameless need to know him exactly as he was. Here, now, in whatever iterations of themselves they had come together as. There was a glowing future to reach for, but a part of her had willingly drowned in the present, flawed and jagged and treacherous as it was. Existing in the moment had always been nothing more than rugged survival. Moments spared for life outside of that were spent on a life lost – a tally of days past, accumulated emptiness – or a life yet to be gained. A return; a long-awaited reunion. When had the present ever been pure, immediate joy? Not until now, here, with Kylo. It was Kylo’s hand being offered, and instead of trying to look beyond it, to look for something else, it was Kylo’s hand she took, drawing herself up with a renewed vow.

“I’m not going to leave you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to [dyadinbloom](https://twitter.com/dyadinbloom?s=20) and [AuroraReylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraReylo/profile) for their endless support! ❤️


	18. Downfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His posture stiffened, his back straightening, as he watched the podium rise out of the floor a little way beyond where he and Rey were standing. At once, he felt the familiar flutterings of Darkness at the edges of his consciousness — they always came when he was in the presence of his grandfather’s helmet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 

Kylo knew what it felt like to touch Rey. In the past few hours, his fingertips had skimmed down her sides, felt the velvety softness of her creamy thighs, explored her warm, hot places, cupped her ass and her breasts, tenderly and not so tenderly, twined into her loose hair and held it fast as he’d explored her mouth with his. He had always been a fast learner, and the feel of Rey beneath his touch, against his skin, inside his head, was his new favorite subject for revision.

It hadn’t prepared him to feel her hand finally grasping his, however. He gawped at where their palms touched, dazzled by the momentousness of the occasion. The _significance_ , after so long, rendered him unable to move, save to curl his long, thick fingers around her hand and hold on tight.

He could feel the muscle beneath his eye fluttering as the impulses to smile, laugh and cry warred within him, her promise soothing the old wounds in his soul as he dared to let himself believe it. Gradually, his lips twitched upwards and his chin dipped in a shallow nod, before he pulled her to him and pressed his lips firmly to hers.

The kiss was fierce but chaste, a manifestation of his commitment to be her partner, her equal, her confidant and her ally, not just her lover. He wanted the sweet, passionate release he had only ever been able to find between her legs, but she meant so much more than that to him. _This_ meant so much more to him. Her acceptance of his offer made him feel like anything was possible. All of his dreams were finally within his reach. When he broke away to look down at her, his eyes glittered with all the possibilities.

He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling against her, and finally his lips relaxed into something closer to the easy expression of joy he’d begun to relearn since having her in his arms.

Her hand was still clasped tightly in his, drawn up close to his shoulder, but he eased his grip as he loosened his other arm from around her and stepped back. He didn’t let go of her, though, just laced their fingers together.

When his eyes had drunk their fill of her, he gave a resigned sigh and started backing away with her towards the panelled wall of his living space, and the compartment it concealed.

“Come on, then,” he said, trying to sound put-upon but not quite able to hide the smile in his voice. “Since you want to see inside so badly.”

He only let go of her hand once he sensed the wall close behind him, and then turned to open the storage compartment. Once the long door had swung open in response to his biometrics, he stepped aside to give her access and reached up to hook his fingers around the edge of the door at head height as he leaned against it.

“I think you’ll be disappointed. For all that it’s secure, the contents are probably rather dull to anyone that isn’t me.”

✦ ✦ ✦

She hadn’t known how to seal the promise before, if she _could_ seal it, if it was a promise she wanted to make. He’d offered to raze the galaxy with her, to burn it down and build the vision they had seen together. There had been no way to accept it then, and it would never, at any time, be a feasible possibility. Even if it was, she didn’t want it. Not the way he intended to carry it out, turning all of the weapons at his militarized command onto whatever hurdle they needed to clear. They wouldn’t just clear it, they would annihilate it, and she couldn’t condone that as their route forward. There was also, it was now abundantly clear, no way forward separately. She didn’t want to go forward separately, even if it could be done. Not now.

Skipping her eyes across Kylo’s face, from one dark eye to the other, to the sensitive flutter of muscle beneath, down the slope of his nose to his lips, she swiftly found herself drawn in to meet them. The kiss that greeted her was firm, assertive, but also reassuring, another wordless promise being made. Taking his hand was one promise, this relentless, magnetic pull between them was another, and then, when he pulled away, the galaxy glittering in his eyes was the final piece. He could see it, everything she had seen; she needed to believe that. He had researched it, compiled a folio of meticulous, fixated evidence, the closest thing they would ever have to solid proof of the bond between them, and she was thoroughly impressed by it. She believed it, even if she couldn’t read the words herself and had to rely on Kylo’s translation. But she believed it, and she admired his efforts and his devotion and his insistence that there was something to understand, a sensible reason why. She also knew what she felt, and even if that had been the only proof she ever found, it would have been enough. They belonged together.

The hard slab of his chest rose and fell against her, and she would have been happy to let herself be hypnotized by that sensation indefinitely, but then he was stepping back, and she squeezed their fingers where they were linked as she let herself be guided along with him to the concealed compartment she had only caught a glimpse of earlier, and her brows lifted in freshly-spun curiosity as he opened it for her now.

How many treasure chests – in all of the various interpretations of that phrase – had she opened in her life? She’d scuttled through the innards of starships to find serviceable remains, and she’d cracked open assorted boxes and compartments and chests that certainly didn’t belong to her. Her right to do so came from the fact that those relics belonged to no one, anymore, but this cupboard and everything it contained belonged to, and was protected by, Kylo himself.

She didn’t hesitate to investigate as soon as she was free to do so, dismissing his warning that she might be disappointed. How could she possibly be disappointed? Secrets were about to spill forth and feed her inquisitive impulse, which was just as ravenous as the hunger that howled unfed through her limber frame. Usually unfed, anyway, but that hunger had been tended to, leaving her entirely free to be distracted by the curiosities revealed to her. Leaning in to begin roving her hands over everything foreign and dark, rooting carefully, she narrated the exploration with a bright, delighted hum.

There were books, unsurprisingly. And rolled parchments, and strange implements used for writing. Elaborate, at least when she tried to place them within her reference for known writing utensils. Evidence of time spent devoted to the creation and care of written texts. If the writing implements were strange, the trinkets she sorted through were stranger: blades and talismans, many crafted from metals and ores that were not familiar to her. Plain rocks? When she ran her fingertips over them, they radiated an energy that was palpable as real heat. It was fierce, unsettling, and she was overcome with a flurry of questions, but then her fingers were landing on a button.

For what? There was only one way to find out. Depressing it without a second thought, she waited expectantly for some other, smaller compartment to reveal itself, but instead there was a shifting of panels in the _floor_ and she spooked back as soon as she felt the mechanized shift. And heard it, and saw it: a podium? It was indeed a podium, and it slowly lifted with it an unmistakable artifact. Another mask – a crushed helmet, black and broken, and she blinked in silent bewilderment as it rose, brushing back a damp length of hair that fell in front of her ear. Forgetting the cupboard, she stepped instead to approach the pedestal, sparing a glance in Kylo’s direction as she did.

“Well, that’s unexpected.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo’s eyes followed Rey’s hands as they moved over his things, feeling the apprehensive fluttering of his heartbeat as he awaited her analysis. No one else had seen this side of him, not in a very long time – it was a side of him he purported to have killed many years ago, yet here it was, his secret depths, laid out for Rey to peruse. He sucked in a deep breath, his gaze darting back and forth between her reverent fingertips and the objects they hovered over – texts and talismans, calligraphy supplies and ancient relics – then flickering to her face in an attempt to catch any hint of derision or ridicule there. There was none. She seemed to study each item with rapt fascination before moving onto the next.

As the moments passed, Kylo began to feel more at ease with the careful way Rey rifled through the detritus of his life, so much so that he became more engrossed in the expression on her face as she discovered each new, unknown thing, than he was preoccupied with what her fingertips were exploring. It wasn’t until he heard the familiar hiss of hydraulics that he realised what she’d done.

His posture stiffened, his back straightening, as he watched the podium rise out of the floor a little way beyond where he and Rey were standing. At once, he felt the familiar flutterings of Darkness at the edges of his consciousness – they always came when he was in the presence of his grandfather’s helmet.

Rey had started back at the emergence of the podium, although she regained her sense of curiosity before Kylo’s eyes, stepping forward to examine this new discovering with a cursory glance at him as she approached. His own answering gaze was wary, although his defiantly logical brain demanded to know what he had to be discomfited about. Vader was his heritage, his lineage, the source of his power and his legacy to live up to. If Rey was being honest about wanting to stay in his life, then she needed to see this. Wasn’t sooner better than later? His own family had kept the truth from him for twenty three years, leaving him to learn where he’d come from in the cruellest way – his inherent darkness laid bare on a galactic stage. This was better. There would be no secrets between him and Rey, no lies waiting to tear them apart.

“It was my grandfather’s,” he said gruffly, letting the door to the storage compartment swing to as he stepped close behind her to peer down into the charred and hollow eyes of the helmet.

✦ ✦ ✦

It couldn’t be all _that_ unexpected, could it? She’d felt his fascination and his loyalty and his knifing fear as if it had been her own, when she’d stumbled into the dark corridors of his mind. There had been his shivering reverence of Vader, his appreciation of a raw power that he knew he would never replicate. She’d sensed that primal dread as if it had been spiking her own blood, as if it was a misery that had long tormented her, awake and asleep. Only briefly, and then he’d been shut out from her mind and she’d been shut out from his, like a bone snapping. A spark of naked terror that had been smothered almost immediately. One of the galaxy’s most feared men inadvertently revealing to her the fear that governed his own heart. And now, here, solid and real as any stone, was the helmet of the legendary villain himself.

It was battered, lifeless, smoldered – taking an inquisitive step closer, she felt as if she were stepping into a tangled cloud of smoke. Darkness was pressing and pungent. It was also smooth and silent, and insidiously inviting in that way. A self-contained system of quiet balance. _Dark_ balance, to be sure, but balance nonetheless, and she leaned to regard the mangled black helmet a bit more closely. It emanated an energy that was almost palpable. If she could feel it, regardless of how little she understood, what did Kylo experience standing before that terrible, revered relic? His presence close behind her sent a chill spilling in reverse, from the bottom of her spine up to the top. She looked over her shoulder to try and catch the expression on his face.

His tone was gruff and direct, and she followed his gaze back down to the empty, crushed sockets of the mask. So this was the muse of darkness he appealed to. His purest inspiration for his narrow-minded pursuits? His treasured possession. His most prized salvage. In that way, she understood. Maybe it was the same way she felt with the tallies she’d scraped into the walls of the AT-AT on Jakku. Maybe it was imbued with the same hope and longing that she’d placed in a wayward nightbloomer, or a doll pieced together from anyone’s scrap. That he was sharing it with her, then, was no small gift. He certainly didn’t have to. He could have kept it, all of this, for himself.

“What does it show you?” she asked without any careful thought beforehand. She simply assumed that it _did_ show him things, the same way she’d caught glimpses of visions in dreams, in the strumming of the Force, and when she’d laid her hands on things that did not belong to her. That tactile impulse hadn’t faded, and so she reached forward with just as little forethought, grazing her fingertips beneath the mask’s charred eye. Did it show him the past or the future? Some kaleidoscope of past, future and present that he was left to try and interpret? There was a crackling growl of energy that traveled through her own fingers, though whether that was purely the effect of anticipation and a curious mind, she couldn’t say. Something quiet and snarling, but it wasn’t as simple as rage. It was deeply sorrowful, too.

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo's gaze flickered sideways to Rey as he sensed her eyes upon him.

"Power," he replied, his dark brow furrowed in a kind of hard reverence. "Strength."

His hand drifted up to find the gentle curve of her waist beneath the thin-knit fabric of his undershirt. He stepped closer, leaning down to rest his chin on her shoulder as he felt her back mold to his chest, before closing his arms around her.

"Courage," he continued. "Determination." He took a deep breath. "He shows me how to be more than what I was."

There was silence as he let his vulnerability rest in the air.

Ever since he had learned Vader's story and his connection to it, he had looked to his grandfather for the strength he'd needed to walk this path he'd found himself on. He'd guided him as he'd built the hard, outer shell which was Kylo Ren. He'd steadied him when he'd wavered in his dedication to the Dark Side. He'd shown him visions of what the galaxy could be, the galaxy that he and Rey could still build, free from the mistakes of both Republics and the Empire.

Vader had lost everything, built himself up from nothing, wielded real power and, ultimately, decided his own fate. His story had told Kylo that he could do the same. It was in his blood, after all.

"What do you feel?" he asked, his gaze lingering on Rey’s curious fingertips and where they rested against the charred, black metal. He was certain she felt something; he could feel it resonating through her where his stubbled chin brushed against the smooth, warm skin just above her neckline. "Do you see something?"

✦ ✦ ✦

Power; strength. That came as no surprise – why else would he have kept the relic at all, if not for the function of stoking what he had burning inside him? A crippling need for greater and greater power, and the strength to maintain it. Such was the simple ambition of Kylo Ren, his determination to plunder the galaxy of goodness and light until he had brought it to heel. It never had been and never would be as simple as that; she’d come to that truth the moment they’d brushed fingertips beside the fire on Luke’s island. It wasn’t mere power and strength he longed for. If that were true, wouldn’t he already have found it? Wouldn’t he already _have_ it, poised as he was to easily take the mantle of master of the universe? Courage and determination. She’d glimpsed his fear, and she’d felt his uncertainty as a tremor clambering down her own spine. All misgivings that were laid to rest by standing in the presence of this battered and smoldered mask?

Melting back against his chest as he filled the space behind her, she reveled in the warmth of his heavy arms around her, contrasted against the steely, wintery presence of the mask, like a snow-driven wind. More than what he was? She drew her fingers back from the broken face of the mask and rested them on Kylo’s arms instead.

“But wasn’t that his downfall? Thinking he needed to be more than what he was?” she couldn’t help but continue to muse aloud, knowing that there were surely gaps in her understanding that would be corrected and illuminated. But that was the heart of it, wasn’t it? Vader had been led to believe his strength was insufficient, and his pursuit for something greater had led him to lose nearly everything.

But, as she was also well-aware, no story was bathed purely in darkness. Nothing was as simple as it seemed. Shivering beneath the brush of his stubbled chin, she wandered her gaze back over the revered, black metal, allowing its ancient, desperate echoes to howl briefly through her. Hard to describe what she felt, or what she might think she saw. Just as it had been a matter of wordless interpretation, a long moment of open recognition, to understand what she’d felt and seen on Ahch-To.

“Sadness. Loss.” A nebula; a star-spattered disorientation. “Darkness, yes, but,” something else, something that wasn’t the ‘dark’ as she had always been led to believe it was. Something layered and deep, rushing with flickering currents of a light she couldn’t name. “Not total darkness. Like the darkness of a dream you know you’ll wake up from sooner or later. That you hope you’ll wake from, anyway.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Kylo's frame tensed for a moment around Rey before he forced himself to relax. She had heard the story as told by the conquering heroes. He couldn't blame her. It was the same story he'd heard growing up, before he'd learned the truth: the cautionary tale of a man's fall into darkness and temptation. With only his mother and uncle to set the record straight for her, it was no wonder she thought of Vader's turn to the Dark Side as his downfall. He knew she didn't say it to wound him or chastise him for his own choices – he knew she would have had no qualms in telling him directly if that had been her purpose – but he felt the slice of her words nevertheless.

"Some would argue that his lingering sentimentality over family was his downfall," he replied stiffly, although he didn't lift his chin away from her shoulder as he spoke.

✦ ✦ ✦

Those flickers of unexpected tension through his body were becoming more familiar, like shivers or flinches across her own skin. Mainly, it seemed, because of something she said, usually without thinking beforehand. It generally happened that she pondered aloud without thinking, however, only coming to regret her insistent curiosity when it had an obvious, and negative, impact on the looming body encasing her own. As it did now, and she felt him go briefly rigid before that tension slipped into his voice, and she then felt it reverberate through her shoulder and go tumbling across her collarbone. It was understandably a sensitive topic, but that didn’t mean she was easily able to keep quiet about it, and he wasn’t stepping away.

“Some would argue that sentimentality is the only downfall,” for her, for him, and for every other sentient in the galaxy. It was love and attachment that drove people to acts of dangerous and wild devotion, right? At the cost of rationality and sensibility and even their own lives, or the lives of those they claimed to love. But it wasn’t argued stiffly; it was just an observation, a thought, and one that seemed to her rather relevant. Darth Vader’s trajectory was perhaps the most legendary of failures, but those same small arcs were lived every day, weren’t they? Power was always coveted, at nearly any cost.

✦ ✦ ✦

For the last seven years, Kylo had told himself that he could learn from the moment of weakness and sentimentality which had led to Vader's death, harden his heart and prepare himself for the inevitable day when that test would come for him. And come it had, and he had done what Vader could not: he had ignited his lightsaber through his father's heart and let the last of his ties to his family plummet into the depths of a dying planet. That had been his plan, at least. The reality had been far less simple, far messier. The deed had left his soul torn, bleeding and vulnerable – vulnerable to the pervading light of an inconsequential scavenger which had crept up on him out of nowhere.

And now…

Well, now he understood what it felt like to be willing to die for someone, the way his father had been willing to die for him, the way Vader had been willing to die for Luke.

His brow furrowed as a thought struck him, her words fading into the ambient hum of the ventilation system as his mind whirled away from him, back to the bed where the results of their lovemaking were smeared across his black sheets.

"Rey," he interrupted, and he did straighten up then, although he didn't step away, letting his heart beat wildly against the back of her shoulders instead. "Are you on birth control?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is something that we started writing way back in March 2020 as a roleplay line and we're so excited to share it with you all, especially after all the wonderful feedback and encouragement we've had from our fellow writers in The Writing Den. 
> 
> We would love to know your thoughts and predictions, so please do leave us a comment down below or come say 'Hi' at @Everren327 on Twitter. ❤️
> 
> UPDATE: We're currently (Feb 2021) taking a break from this story but we hope to be able to continue it in the future so please feel free to subscribe for updates, and thank you so much for coming along on this journey with us so far. Every kudos and comment has brought such joy to our lives.


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